A view of the ambiance throughout the Whitney Port & Bundle Organics #MotherAsYouAre buybuyBABY product launch in Torrance, California.
Randy Shropshire | Getty Images
As Bed Bath & Beyond shakes up its management suite and ousts its CEO, the retailer mentioned Wednesday it stays open to a different massive change: A possible sale of its child gear chain, Buybuy Baby.
“The enterprise is a really enticing enterprise, and we’re not alone in appreciating its worth,” interim CEO Sue Gove mentioned on a name with analysts when requested if a sale was off the desk. “We know there may be curiosity.”
For now, she mentioned, the father or mother firm is concentrated on methods to drive gross sales. That contains enhancing the division’s web site and app and attracting extra customers to its child registry.
The child gear chain is a part of a brand new loyalty program, Welcome Rewards, too. That program started rolling out earlier this month. It permits customers to earn and redeem factors when buying on-line or in shops at any of the corporate’s three banners: Bed Bath & Beyond, Buybuy Baby and private care model Harmon Face Values.
Buybuy Baby has been a focus in a contentious battle between the house items retailer and activist investor Ryan Cohen. In March, Cohen pointed to the newborn gear banner as some of the invaluable items of the corporate, arguing it could possibly be price a number of billion {dollars}, and pushed for a derivative or selloff. He later got here to a truce with the corporate, after it agreed so as to add new board members and conduct a strategic overview of Buybuy Baby’s future choices.
Bed Bath’s inventory jumped in April on a report by The Wall Street Journal that the corporate was fielding curiosity for the division. At the time, the corporate didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The child gear retailer has been certainly one of Bed Bath’s vivid spots, significantly as buyer visitors and gross sales have dropped at its namesake banner. In the vacation quarter, for instance, same-store gross sales for Bed Bath & Beyond shops declined 15% — however Buybuy Baby’s same-store gross sales grew by low single digits.
That development did not maintain up in the latest three-month interval, nevertheless. Buybuy Baby’s same-store gross sales fell by the mid single-digits.
Harriet Edelman, who leads the board of administrators as its impartial chair, mentioned Wednesday a committee of board members are working carefully with strategic and monetary advisors because it considers Buybuy Baby’s future.
On the decision with analysts, she described Buybuy Baby as “a extremely related banner with a powerful market place and favorable demographics.”
Bed Bath & Beyond over the previous two years has bought off different items of its enterprise, together with Christmas Tree Shops, Cost Plus World Market, PersonalizationMall.com and One Kings Lane.