Christopher & Banks seals leaseback agreement for the sake of greater financial flexibility

The U.S. womenswear chain, which operates 462 stores in 45 states, has secured a 13.65 million dollars agreement with a private, unaffiliated investor group to sell and lease back its corporate headquarters.

The company expects the deal “to provide greater financial flexibility as we execute on our strategic initiatives to drive improved performance,” said Keri Jones, Christopher & Banks president and CEO. Commenting the operation, the company estimated the net expense impact in the first year of the lease to be around 300,000 dollars, including rent expense, net of depreciation expense and the amortized gain on the sale.

Christopher & Banks’ has suffered the brick & mortar blues that affects shopping malls’ centric retailers.

The chain’s sales and profits continued to decline in the past year, but the company is currently renewing its merchandising, marketing, e-commerce, and store operations in a quest to achieve more consistent financial performance.

The turnaround plan is starting to bear fruit as the fashion retailer has more than halved its net loss over the past twelve months, posting a 8.8 million dollars net loss for the fourth quarter (compared to 17.2 million dollars lost a year ago over the comparable period.)