Sears Adds Structure To Clothing Racks

NEW YORK, (Reuters) - Sears, Roebuck and Co. Monday said it would buy the Structure men's clothing brand from Limited Brands Inc., the latest effort by the department store chain to infuse its clothing business with popular labels. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Sears, based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, said it anticipates the overall cost will be less than $10 million. The deal includes the rights to the brand and related trademarks, but no physical assets. Sears has not determined who will manufacture the line, but it expects to carry Structure merchandise in its stores by the end of next year. "We will be doing our own sourcing with a blend of internal and external talent on the design side," Mindy Meads, Sears executive vice president of apparel, said in an interview. Limited, based in Columbus, Ohio, in 2001 began phasing out the Structure brand, which targeted males aged 18 to 30. Sales had declined since the mid-to-late 1990s as the brand fell out of favor with label-conscious young men. Stores carrying the Structure name were renamed Express Men's, mirroring the name of its sister chain for women. But Meads said Sears' research showed that men ages 20 to 35 still had a high awareness of the Structure brand. "Structure is a very strong name for that segment of the market and we feel we can provide design and sourcing to bring that alive in the store. And I think the customer will recognize that brand," she said. Whether the Structure name can draw consumers to Sears stores depends on how much advertising muscle the retailer puts behind the brand, said Joe Grabowski, an analyst with Strong Capital Management, which owns about 1.4 million Sears shares. It could be a more attractive and meaningful name than some of the other exclusive labels Sears has in its young men's department, he said. Grabowski noted that Target Corp. has successfully resurrected dormant brands like Mossimo, but not without a meaningful investment in marketing. Last year Sears acquired Lands' End, a mail-order clothing retailer, for $1.9 billion and rolled the line out to about half of its stores. "It's had a difference in the total business in the stores carrying that brand, and we're very pleased with the response so far," Meads said. Sears said Lands' End boosted its quarterly revenue in the latest quarter, and that the line would be available across the 870-store chain by this fall. Sears shares were up 59 cents at $44.11 in mid-afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, while Limited shares rose 15 cents to $15.93, also on the NYSE. (Additional reporting by Tom Johnson and Brad Dorfman.)