Things to Watch For in 2001

Will New Penney’s Chief Fashion a New Look?

Fashion? At Penney’s? Don’t be too surprised--the company’s dapper new chief executive, Allen I. Questrom, has led the fanciest of fancy department stores. Among his previous gigs: heading Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus Group Inc. and the whole stable of Federated Department Stores Inc.

Penney’s, the nation’s second-largest department store with fiscal 2000 sales of $32.5 billion, reached a stock high of $75 in 1998. Since then, however, J.C. Penney Co. has served as the little retail chain that couldn’t. Plummeting sales, listless merchandise and an odd market position--neither as upscale as the department stores nor as cheap as the mass merchants--combined to leave the Plano, Texas-based company out of the retail resurgence of the late 1990s.

Turnarounds, however, are Questrom’s specialty. Most recently, he led Barneys and the giant Federated group out of bankruptcy. He also transformed Federated into the nation’s largest department store chain, adding the R.H. Macy & Co. and Broadway chains to its stable.