Gap is Planning to do This “Quickly” and “Aggressively”

Clothing retailer The Gap Brand announced that it is looking to close hundreds of its stores at malls and according to CEO Art Peck, the company will act “quickly” and “aggressively.”

Gap said it has 775 Gap-branded stores globally and in total has over 3,000 stores around the world with stores under the Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta logos.

Unfortunately, the company’s namesake brand has suffered the most recently. In its third quarter report, Gap said that sales at Gap stores open for at least 12 months had fallen 7%.

“There are hundreds of other stores that likely don’t fit our vision for the future of Gap brand specialty store, whether in terms of profitability, customer experience, traffic trends,” CEO Art Peck said. “The range from the very best to the very worst stores is extremely broad.”

“There likely will be a cash cost to exit many of these stores, which we will attempt to minimize,” Peck said to analysts. “But I plan to exit those that do not fit the future vision quickly. I’m going to move thoughtfully but aggressively.”

“We view management’s comment on addressing the bottom half of the Gap’s specialty store base as encouraging if executed right,” remarked Cowen and Co. analyst Oliver Chen. “We view that improving profitability of the Gap brand is crucial to making GPS’ performance consistent and healthy.”

No locations have been specified yet but Gap says it will have more information when it provides its forecast for the next fiscal year.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) and have not been compensated for this article.