Isetan Mitsukoshi to close 6 department stores by next spring

TOKYO, Sept. 25 Kyodo - Japan's largest department store operator Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. said Thursday it will shut down unprofitable stores in six locations by next spring as part of its restructuring efforts to combat an economic slowdown.

The store closings will be the first since two major department store chains --
Mitsukoshi Ltd. and Isetan Co. -- merged to launch a holding company in April.
The six Mitsukoshi department stores to be closed include the Ikebukuro branch
located in a crowded shopping district in Tokyo, as well as regional branches
in Kagoshima and Miyagi prefectures.
With the decision, the company said it hopes to achieve its target of logging a
group operating profit of 75 billion yen in fiscal 2013 through March 2014,
which would mark an all-time high for the department store industry.
''We decided it was necessary to further strengthen our structural reforms and
financial basis'' amid a harsh environment faced by Japanese companies, Isetan
Mitsukoshi said in a statement.
Hit by lagging consumer consumption and an economic downturn, other competitors
like J. Front Retailing Co., the operator of the Daimaru and Matsuzakaya
department store chains, have also been forced to shut down its department
stores in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, by the end of the year.
Japan's department store sales fell 3.1 percent in August from a year earlier
on a same-store basis, down for the sixth straight month, according to data
released last week by the Japan Department Stores Association.
==Kyodo