The Massachusetts-based company revealed net income of $6.1 million, or 30 cents per share, for the quarter ended June 28, compared to a net profit of $6.4m, or 32 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Sales climbed 12.7 per cent to $97.4m from $86.4m with sales productivity in the direct segment down three per cent year-on-year and retail segment sales per square foot down six per cent from the year prior.

President and CEO, Gordon Cooke, said: "Although we are pleased to have achieved bottom-line results in line with current expectations our business faces significant challenges from a top-line perspective.

"Not only has our top-line performance fallen short of expectations, it continues to be highly volatile - making forecasting very difficult."

He continued: "With this in mind, the company currently projects diluted earnings per share to be in the 35 to 40 cents range for the fall season, with the third quarter having the greatest negative impact when compared to last year and potentially coming in at a loss.

"The projected third quarter earnings decline versus a year ago is a result of significantly lower forecasted margins due to increased off-price selling as a result of excess spring inventory, higher planned selling costs in the direct channel as productivity continues to be impacted by a shift of customers to the retail channel and greater than anticipated infrastructure investments in design, product development, sourcing, in-store visual presentation and our multi-channel customer database."

The firm said it expects to save around $850,000 a year through the job cuts and reorganisation programme which came amid mounting losses and soft sales.

The latest workforce reductions were triggered by its decision to switch production to its plant at Szombathely, in western Hungary, from its factories in nearby Kormend and Vasvar.

The agreement, which will run until 31 December 2006, means that Kanematsu replaces Lotto Sport’s current Japanese licensee, Royal Corporation.

Kanematsu Textile will sell Lotto-brand products through sporting goods stores in Japan.

Lotto Sport Italia said in a statement that the licensing agreement is key to increasing its brand penetration in Japan. The objective is to achieve 8-10 per cent of the football market and 5-7 per cent of the tennis market in three years.

The company is aiming for a turnover of 6.5 billion Yen (48,964 million euros) for 2006.

New collections will be designed in line with Japanese consumers' tastes, improvements will be made to distribution, and prices will be raised.

“Japan has always been a key market in the worldwide business development of any company in any sector,” explained Andrea Tomat, president of Lotto Sport Italia.

“In Lotto's case this applies all the more because Japan has total football footwear and clothing sales of around 34.350 million Yen while the figure is 42.230 million Yen in the tennis shoes and clothing market.”]]>

“In Lotto's case this applies all the more because Japan has total football footwear and clothing sales of around 34.350 million Yen while the figure is 42.230 million Yen in the tennis shoes and clothing market.”

The post JAPAN: Lotto Sport Italia Signs Kanematsu As New Licensee appeared first on Just Style.

The firm, whose subsidiaries are Point Blank Body Armor Inc and Protective Apparel Corp of America, reported net income of $3.9 million, or nine cents per diluted share, versus $4.4m, or 11 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Sales in the 13 weeks to June 13 jumped 66 per cent to $56.2m from $34m last year while its operating profit soared 57 per cent to $7.7m from $4.9m last year.

The New York-based firm’s CFO, Dawn Schlegel, said: "The company's first half operating results reflect the high demand for our products across all sectors - military, law enforcement and federal agencies. Given continued strong demand, we expect revenues for Q3 will exceed $50m."

Officials said the north-west region, home to 700 clothing firms and industry giants such as Zara owner Inditex, helped employ more than half of the industry's 30,000 apparel workers.

They added the total turnover of the country's textile and garment industry was 13.91 billion euros, without providing a year-ago figure.

The proposal has been discussed by the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) and Arvind Mills managing director Sanjay S Lalbhai.

Arvind Mills already operates bonded warehouses in Turkey and Europe and a few years ago had one in the US as well.

”If the necessary approvals are given we are keen to set up the Bonded warehouse in Colombo shortly. I firmly believe that such an arrangement would benefit both countries," Mr Lalbhai said.

JAAF's backward integration sub-committee chairman Anil Hirdramani said having a bonded warehouse would enable Sri Lankan manufacturers and exporters to source denim and shirting material quickly and meet shipment deadlines. "This will reduce the lead time considerably," he added.

Mr Lalbhai added: "Unlike Sri Lanka, India has no such depth in the apparel manufacturing base or the relationships. But we have a good textile base and could meet Sri Lanka's requirements.

Sri Lanka imports US$1 billion worth of textiles annually although just US$50 million of this comes from India.

"Initially we will focus on denim and shirting material," Mr Lalbhai said.]]>

"Initially we will focus on denim and shirting material," Mr Lalbhai said.

The post SRI LANKA: Arvind Mills Plans Bonded Warehouse In Colombo appeared first on Just Style.

Footwear designer and developer Steven Madden Ltd on Friday launched a new women's footwear line under the "Steven" name aimed at females aged between 25 and 45.

The new line replaces the company's existing David Aaron line and its two David Aaron stores are being converted into "Steven" concept stores, the New York-base firm said in press release late Thursday.

The line, with price points of $89 to $110 for shoes and $135 to $175 for boots, will operate under its own division led by Jay Litvack, previously president of the David Aaron division, who reports directly to Rob Schmertz, president of Steve Madden women's and brand manager.

CEO Jamieson Karson said: "We are very excited to be introducing a new women's collection to further diversify our business and round out our product offerings. The new Steven line will build upon the success of David Aaron and is a natural evolution for our business.

"We plan to leverage our existing infrastructure to broadly and efficiently introduce this brand to an expanded customer base as we utilise the David Aaron brand through appropriate market opportunities which we have identified."

The European unit of US apparel giant VF Corp said the TXT SC&CM Assortment Planning module’s key functions include optimal open-to-buy plans; balanced product assortments and continuous in-season and post-season forecast monitoring.

VF IT and logistics director, Marca di Pietro, said: "With TXT we fell we have a very strong partner to support VF Europe Jeanswear on its strategic Retail Partnership Initiative throughout Europe.

"This is a challenge and an opportunity for both TXT and VF Europe."

Financial details were not disclosed.

The operator of more than 100 stores also said it is in early negotiations with private equity group CVC Capital Partners and Texas Pacific Group over a potential rival bid. Both bids are expected to value Debenhams at around £1.5 billion.

Shi Jianwei, director of the Cotton and Sesame Department of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, said the imports were needed as the nation’s cotton production would only be around 5.7 million tons.

He added with demand for cotton by textile mills standing at 6.3 million tons overseas suppliers will be needed for the remaining 600,000 tons.

The company, which also makes auto parts, reported a six month net profit of 39.9 million Swiss francs ($29.6m) versus a loss of 9.6 million francs in the year-ago period.

Sales climbed 13.6 per cent to 1.25 billion francs from 1.1 billion francs in 2002 with orders up four per cent year-on-year to 1.42 billion francs.

The firm added restructuring at its textile division is progressing well and it had increased its move to offshore manufacturing.

"All in all Saurer anticipates a constant level of sales for the second half-year and, due to the unfavourable product mix in the Textile and Transmissions Systems divisions, a slightly lower operating profit margin overall," it said in a statement.

"Compared with the prior year, this will lead to a slight increase in sales and a further improvement in profit."

Chief executive Richard Haire told shareholders at the firm’s annual general meeting that the next crop will range from 230,000 tons to 800,000 tons depending on the amount of rain received in the Queensland and New South Wales region.

"Despite some recent rainfall in parts of western Queensland, the drought persists and will continue to have an impact on Queensland's cotton business in the immediate term," he explained.

He added the recent drought had almost halved cotton production in Queensland in 2002/03, slashing revenue from A$815 million (US$538m) to A$623m (US$411.6m).

He also reaffirmed its full year profit outlook of a 40 to 50 per cent slide from last year’s A$8.2m.

The Financial Express reported a team of executives are due to visit Bangladesh later this month to explore possible production opportunities.

The company's denim division currently produces up to 20 million metres of fabric a year and supplies major brands including Levi Strauss, Tommy Hilfiger and Gap.

The operator of about 280 Monsoon and Accessorize stores reported a 19 per cent year-on-year jump in pre-tax profit for the 12 months ended May 31 to £38.2 million as sales rose to £231.1m from £203.6m last year.

The company said in a statement it had enjoyed an "excellent" start to the new financial year as several weeks of hot weather boosted sales of its summer range.

It said total sales for the seven weeks to July 19 soared 29 per cent from last year with same-store sales for the period up 11 per cent.

Separately on Monday, the retailer named John Clark as its new group finance director, effective August 18. He will replace Andrew May.

Retailers are increasingly besieged with claims about the benefits of new technologies and practices for buying, allocating, planning, replenishment, promotional planning, pricing and other key merchandising activities. This article by Karabus Management scrapes away the hype about merchandise optimisation and looks at how retailers are boosting margins and inventory productivity by better predicting and meeting demand.

How often does a customer enter one of your stores and leave again without having made a purchase? Why didn't they purchase? Couldn't find the right item? The right size? The right price? How much does it cost your company to let potential customers walk out empty handed?

Now take the flip side. How often does a customer buy something at a sale price when they would have paid full price? Perhaps it was a company-wide markdown on items that were doing well in specific geographies but not in others. How much does that cost the company? And why does this happen?

Because from a headquarters location, your merchants cannot see traffic patterns and inventory positions in every single store. And how often do you have to "sell" residual product at the end of the season to pennies on the dollar because it did not sell at any price?

Now imagine putting a buyer, planner and pricer in your stores - every one of them - even if there are hundreds or thousands of locations. Every day, perhaps every hour, these analysts would be on top of every category and every SKU, making rapid-fire decisions to optimise each store.

The result? Better pricing. Less unsold inventory. Higher inventory turns. Fatter margins. Customers, conditioned to getting what they want when they visit the store, would become more loyal.

In essence, this is what a number of retailers are beginning to do - without of course, the impracticality of adding skilled analysts to every store. By implementing optimisation technology, supported by changes to processes, culture, roles and accountabilities, merchants are getting much more accurate, timely and granular information about consumer demand.

They are then using those insights to make much better decisions across their entire merchandising operations: what merchandise to purchase, how to plan and allocate it, how to price it (both initially and for markdown), how to promote it and how to replenish it on the shelves.

It's called Merchandise Optimisation. And it's all about making significant changes in the way merchants plan, promote, purchase, allocate, replenish and price products - changes that fly in the face of tradition but which are essential to generating substantial business benefits.

Without making those changes to process, accountabilities and philosophy, the goldmine of information the new technology delivers will remain untapped.

Retailers that are using the technology - and are changing age-old merchandising practices, further defining roles and skills, and creating accountabilities - are getting impressive results.

Northern Group Retail experienced substantial payback during the 2002
Holiday season, just one month after implementing markdown optimisation technology, supported by revised roles and processes. JC Penney has made major undisclosed improvements in gross margins after instituting merchandise optimisation.

But these are just the early returns. The technology is relatively new and evolving quickly. The changes in merchandising practices, roles and measures necessary to capitalise on the technology are just starting to be understood.

But while it is key to use the technology to provide crucial insights on customer demand, retailers must use this information to change business processes and get buy-in, in order to deliver substantial improvement in margins, inventory turns, comp store sales and thus earnings.

The point is not that one should be swept up in the euphoria of merchandise optimisation. Rather, it is to understand how to bring this opportunity to life and make it real for retailers.

Understanding industry best practices and how they can apply to each retailer's specific business is the key place to start. In certain cases, we have found that retailers can make substantial financial improvements in merchandising processes just by tapping the hitherto unknown functionality of their existing information systems and applying some best practices.

An example of this was a large apparel retailer who hired our firm to help it figure out how to deal with the 7 out of every 10 people who had gone into the store with the intent to buy and had not purchased something for the reason that "they could not find the right size" (sound familiar?).

Within 45 days, we identified some size optimisation features in its existing allocation software that it was not aware of. When this was implemented, together with merchant training and related process modification, it resulted in a more store-specific allocation, thereby significantly reducing this problem.

But whether or not new or existing technology is required, retailers must begin with a business - not technology-driven - approach that focuses on the greatest "pain point" in merchandising and what the potential returns will be.

What's driving retailers toward merchandise optimisation?
Three forces are driving retailers to get far better at the complex challenge of matching customer demand with the supply of the right items at the right times in the right places:

• Lack of economic growth in retailing
  The economic downturn in recent years has forced retailers to fight over a pie which is shrinking or, at best, not growing (retail market share has become a "zero sum game").
  
  Even the world's strongest retailers are having trouble gaining a bigger slice of the action. In 2001, the average annual growth rate of the top 100 retailers was less than half the rate of the previous five years (4 per cent vs 9 per cent).
  
  Growth in certain retail segments has been flat or declining. In fact, sectors like specialty apparel have been shrinking. For example, between 1992 and 2001, US women's clothing stores' share of US retail sales (excluding restaurants and automobiles) declined from 2.6 per cent to 1.7 per cent.
  
  All this means that retailers must steal share from one another to grow which, in turn, means better assessing what consumers want, when, where and at what price.
  
  
• The rise of the "process killers"
  Remember when the "category killers" were regarded as the biggest threat to retailing? Judging by Wal-Mart's success in toys (it now sells more toys than former industry leader Toys R Us), jewellery and photo finishing, to list just a few categories, we now know it isn't necessarily true.
  
  But a different retailing juggernaut has emerged over the last decade. We call them the "process killers." These retailers run circles around competitors because no one outperforms them in executing a key retail business process.
  
  Wal-Mart is the master of inventory management. Why has the $200 billion retailer raced ahead of Kmart over the last 20 years? It's not because Wal-Mart sells radically different products than Kmart. It's that Wal-Mart is much better at managing those products - at buying, allocating, replenishing, and pricing them.
  
  Few apparel retailers beat Spain's Zara for identifying new fashion trends and getting product in the store faster.
  
  Following the lead of such companies, other retailers have begun to recognise the importance of continually raising their process performance, particularly in those processes that directly touch the merchandise. And they realise that the "performance bar" keeps rising.
  
  
• Rising consumer expectations
  Consumer expectations change faster and vary more from region to region. The shelf life of retail products like fashion apparel, toys, seasonal products and consumer electronics has fallen precipitously. Selling seasons at some apparel chains have increased from two to seven or more a year.
  
  In addition, what customers demand in Des Moines may have little resemblance to what they desire in Denver. All of this works against the DNA of the chain business model that has dominated retailing over the last century by bringing a common approach to store operations, advertising, purchasing and supply chains.
  
  Today there are significant disparities in customer demand for stores in the same state, even in the same town - and those expectations change faster than ever. As a result, matching demand with supply at hundreds of stores across a country is now exponentially more complex. Where it once was appropriate to run the chain one way, now it's store by store. And where once it was acceptable to revisit key decisions every month, now it's daily or at least weekly.

The revolution in demand forecasting technology
What's the key to achieving the promises of merchandise optimisation? Forecasting.
Getting the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right price requires an accurate understanding of the interactions between supply and demand as mitigated by price, availability, presentation, promotion, and time.

The good news is that forecasting has gotten better. Much better. Whereas the only forecasting available to retailers in the past has been "re-tooled" supply-chain approaches which were force-fit to retail, now there are very specific forecasting alternatives that operate down to the store level.

Key in these advances are the scalability and flexibility of forecasting approaches, not only relying on pre-selling data, but updating dynamically based on actual sales.
Fashion forecasting, which was once considered an oxymoron, is now possible, and it is driving the leading assortment, allocation, and markdown optimisation applications.

Data from past fashion seasons is being productively employed to make smarter decisions about upcoming ones. Data from the current season is being deployed in near real time to make decisions about seasonal transitions. Forecasting has come a long way.

No one size fits all
There isn't a single approach to merchandise optimisation for all retailers. The right path depends on: a) whether a retailer is selling short or long life-cycle merchandise (see exhibit 1), and b) on each retailer's particular "pain point."

Merchandise optimization at short lifecycle retailers
Retailers selling short-lifecycle products (such as fashion apparel, toys, seasonal product and electronics) should focus on addressing such activities as assortment planning, store planning and allocation, promotions planning, supply chain and markdown management.

Markdown management is the first area of attack for many retailers. And that's for a good reason: markdown optimisation can generate improvements in margins significantly and rapidly and can also fund longer term initiatives. It has become a necessary tool, especially in apparel and other short life-cycle retailing, where "fresh" product has become crucial and getting rid of "stale" product requires more frequent clearance sales.

Apparel selling seasons for some retailers are no longer measured in months but in weeks and days. Markdown optimisation relies on advanced fashion forecasting techniques that determine the "natural demand," or the inherent pattern of demand for an item independent of seasonality, price, promotion, and inventory position.

Once the "natural demand" curve has been established, managers can stage "what-if" scenarios. "If I want to sell out of this line in three weeks rather than six, what price do I have to sell it for this week, and what will my total gross margin be at the end of the season?"

This same underlying analysis can also be used to evaluate promotional pricing strategies and take into account item-level, store level, and chain-wide promotions as a driver of demand.

Merchants no longer need to make pricing and promotion decisions based on instincts. They can get a much better handle on the impact of their pricing decisions on many more items because the technology is doing the "heavy lifting analytics" that it would take hundreds of pricing analysts to do using spreadsheets and calculators.

With more accurate, timely and specific forecasts of consumer demand, retailers can also improve the next link in the merchandising chain: store allocation. Here again, allocation personnel increasingly need new technology to manage the enormous complexity of ensuring that thousands of products are shipped at the right time in the right amounts to hundreds of stores.

Lacking technology to handle so much information, allocators have been forced to depend on crude averages which often lead to sub-optimal allocation decisions.

For retailers ready to attack the problem at its root, there is tremendous leverage in the initial plan. Few retailers are currently planning at the store/SKU-specific level, yet this is where the demand actually is.

Advanced forecasting and optimisation technology is also being leveraged to inform the initial plan, determine optimal breadth and depth of merchandise, optimal case-pack configurations, optimal flow patterns, optimal size profiles, etc - all at the individual store level within operational constraints.

Leading the charge among the short lifecycle retailers is JCPenney, which is applying forecasting and optimisation technology to markdowns, allocations, and assortment, and whose recent performance has demonstrated a significant return on its focus on revamping its merchandising processes.

Merchandise optimisation at long lifecycle retailers
Retailers of long-lifecycle goods such as basic apparel can benefit from merchandise optimisation as well. Typically, the areas of replenishment, initial pricing, assortment, promotions, and store space utilisation are the key opportunity areas.

While long-lifecycle retailers don't have to focus as much on consumer fads, they do have trouble staying in-stock on predictable items. Out of stocks have been estimated to cost retailers 3-4 per cent of sales every year.

For these retailers, merchandise optimisation is also about establishing a better initial price by more deeply understanding its initial elasticity. By this, we mean how price changes increase or dampen consumer demand, and what price optimises profits. Technology now exists to get a more robust view of initial price elasticity.

Retailers of long-lifecycle items can also improve replenishment and optimise store space with new predictive technologies. Wal-Mart is legendary here. Its store and supply chain systems enable it to review customer purchases immediately and react with lightning speed to sales trends.

For example, the day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Target saw a spike in sales of American flags and tried to buy more of them. Kmart took three days to recognise the pattern and then tried to do the same. Both were stymied. Wal-Mart had beaten them to the punch. The very evening of the attacks, Wal-Mart saw the pattern and quickly cleaned out the entire US inventory of American flags.

Wal-Mart is making daily improvements to its forecasts on basic stock replenishment to generate better buying, allocation and pricing decisions at each store. Such changes not only improve margins, they free up buyers to look for exciting new products.

Making it real
Merchandise optimisation can have a profound impact on a retailer's profits and revenues. But getting those benefits is not simply a matter of implementing new software and training people to use it. Significant challenges stand in the way, all of which can be overcome.

While the requisite changes of merchandise optimisation will vary in type and extent in each activity, collectively they are sweeping. For example, in markdown pricing, merchants may have to change the look of price tags and how the product is presented in the stores; create or make significant changes to some roles; agree on "business rules" to optimise the computer generated recommendations; and integrate the new practices into the way buyers plan and take markdowns. Often, changes to performance management are needed.

Expert Analysis Merchandising optimization: the right product in the right place at the right time. Merchandise optimization helps apparel companies use demand information at the store and SKU level as a basis for strategic merchandising decisions in order to drive revenues. What and how much should I purchase? How do I allocate it? What price should it be? How should I plan for markdowns? What promotions should I run? When and how should I replenish the products? This management briefing, exclusive to members of just-style.com, offers a great insight in to assortment, allocation, pricing, promotional and markdown: the key areas to boost sales, profits and price image. Click here to download this report from the Members Club.

In promotional planning, the changes to business practices are far more substantial given that this activity involves distribution centres, marketing, stores, and merchandising. Parties in all those areas must agree to play by the same set of rules, operate in a new process, and manage a different way of choosing and presenting products.

Buy-in, recognition of corporate culture and how to design the initiative to support and enhance the brand are all crucial to success.

Another key challenge is sizing a merchandise optimisation program correctly. The operational changes extend across a range of functions and departments. Retailers must scope out those changes in advance but implement in them "bite-sized" pieces.

Fashion retailer Northern Group has a massive merchandise optimisation overhaul underway. But it chose first to focus on markdown pricing before embarking on assortment planning, allocation and other fronts because markdowns accounted for a significant per cent of its gross sales.

A more formidable challenge in many retailers has nothing to do with breaking down the project into manageable pieces. It's about getting merchandising personnel to rely on computers rather than gut. In a retailing world of growing complexity, using intuition and last year's sales history to make decisions is no longer sufficient.

Overcoming the resistance of merchandising people requires taking the "mathematical" decisions out of their hands (pricing, assortment, replenishment etc.) and leaving them to focus on the "art" - selecting product, sourcing vendors, negotiating, creating promotions, and so on.

It also means assuring merchants that computer generated advice will be configured to use the business rules the retailer establishes. Ultimately, the decision resides with the merchant.

New ways of pricing, buying, allocating and other merchandising activities will create new roles and demands for new skills. Streamlining and automating manual work of buyers, planners, and analysts will mean focusing them on higher-value tasks, for which some may not be ready. A combination of training and/or new people will be necessary.

How those people are measured and rewarded may have to change as well.

Merchandise optimisation can be about increasing comparative sales, turns and/or gross margins. Retailers that reward their merchants on targets that conflict with where the biggest profit-generators are made - eg, continuing to pay for top-line sales growth when merchandise optimisation is focused on hiking gross margins - will face problems.

To make sure people are moving in the right direction, the organisation will have to institute rigorous measures of performance.

About the authors
The authors of this report are Antony Karabus and Stephen Granovsky who both work for US-based retail and consumer product consulting firm Karabus Management. Antony established Karabus Management in 1989, after eight years with an international consulting firm. Stephen is president of Karabus Management and leads the firm's Retail Operations and Merchandising Practice. Antony can be contacted on akarabus@karabus.com More information on the company can be found at: www.karabus.com

The Texas-based company said the service will be available from this month to the company's three concepts - Abercrombie & Fitch, Abercrombie and Hollister Co – although financial details were not revealed.

SmartLabel allows customers to return merchandise purchased online or through catalogues by detaching the pre-paid, pre-addressed barcoded SmartLabel from their order summary, affixing it to their package, and dropping it off anywhere in the US Postal Service mail stream.

"Adding the SmartLabel return service is evidence of the high premium that Abercrombie & Fitch Co places on quality service," said Raymond Greer, president and CEO of Newgistics.

"In addition to pleasing its customers, Abercrombie & Fitch may look forward to increased operational efficiency throughout their returns process."

The firm, which acquired clothing supplier William Baird for £17.8 million late last year, reported a pre-tax loss for the year ended April 26 of £1.5m versus a year-ago profit of £879,000.

Turnover soared to £91.5m from £29.5m last year with revenue from Baird's labels - Windsmoor, Planet and Precis - contributing just under £58m of that sum.

Vert, which now operates more than 950 stores compared to 160 outlets before the Baird acquisition, said total sales in the first 10 weeks of the new financial year were down 10.5 per cent.

It added like-for-like sales in the period for the Jacques Vert brand were down one per cent and for Windsmoor brands down 9.9 per cent.

"The performance of the Jacques Vert brand is very creditable in what is recognised to be a difficult market," it said in a trading statement.

"The performance of the Windsmoor brands, whilst disappointing, is in line with expectations."

The North Carolina-based company, which makes soft goods for apparel and interior furnishings, said in a statement rival bidders at an auction in New York today will at least have to top that offer if they want to take control.

Last week, the firm said it had received "several proposals in connection with the sales process," but did not give any further details or name any of the suitors.

WL Ross' bid hinges on the sale of Burlington's Lee's Carpet unit to Mohawk Industries Inc, with the potential deal expected to close in October.

Burlington, which filed for Chapter 11 almost two years ago, estimates that distributions to unsecured creditors will be 40 per cent of allowed unsecured claims and that secured creditors will be repaid in full.

Chairman and CEO, George Henderson III, said: "We are pleased that the bidding process is coming to a conclusion and we believe it will enable us to maximise the value of the company and produce the best results for our customers, employees, suppliers and creditors."

Wilbur Ross, Chairman of WL Ross & Co LLC, added: "Lees will benefit from Mohawk's financial strength and business synergies. Burlington's other operations also will be deleveraged and as privately owned businesses will function even more efficiently and responsively to meet the needs of their customers."

The world's biggest retailer said July sales had been boosted by warmer weather with strong demand for seasonal apparel such as swimwear.The firm has previously forecast a two per cent to four per cent increase in July same-store sales.

Experts say a tight tie may raise blood pressure in the veins and eyes which in turn can lead to the optic nerve disease.

In a study, they asked 20 sufferers and 20 none-sufferers to wear a tie tightly and then measured the internal pressure of the eyes.

They discovered 60 per cent of the glaucoma patients and 70 per cent of the other volunteers had higher eye pressure.

"A tight necktie can be considered a risk factor in men who prefer to wear tight neckties, men with thick necks, and white collar professionals," the researchers wrote in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.