Business & Finance: Chain Stores

Early this year Merrill, Lynch & Co. sold their branch offices to E. A. Pierce & Co., became specialists in chain stores. Last week they compiled the results of 52 chain store companies for last month and for the first nine months of the year. During September total sales were $310,535,660, a 4.16% decline. For all 52 chains, nine month sales came to $2,904,181,652, a 1.65 gain. Nine-month returns for the biggest 23 were:

NINE MONTHS % 1930 1929 Change Great Atlantic & Pacific 800,168,990

$ 750,945,457 4-6.5 Sears Roebuck (to Sept. 10) 251,637,498 269,113,582 -6.5 Kroger Groc. & Bak. (to Sept. 27) 196,479.070 209,552,933 -6.2 F. W. Woolworth 196,466,061 205,042,307 -4.1 Montgomery Ward 191,153,122 193,698,785 — 1.3 *Safeway Stores 165,447,527 159,374,501 4-3-8 *J. C. Penney 130,414,312 132.380,338 -1.4 American Stores 104,701,956 104,661,761 + 0.03 *S. S. Kresge Co 101,015,229 104,303,598 -3.1 *First National Stores (to Sept. 27) 82,374,588 71,699,833 + 14.8 *MacMarr Stores 64,960,880 63,475,497 + 2.3 *National Tea 63,442,049 66,465,052 -4.5 S. H. Kress 45,978,362 44,547,584 +3.2 W. T. Grant 45,493453 41,237,620 + 10.3 *Walgreen & Co 38,686,746 33,120,920 4 +16.8 *McCrory Stores Corp 29,219,677 29,760,117 -1.8 National Bellas Hess 25,475.694 36,648,025 -30.4 *Daniel Reeves, Inc 25,330,665 24,672,126 4-2.6 F. & W. Grand Silver 25,168,902** 19,458,560 + 29.3 *Melville Shoe 21,097,025 18,621,253 + 13-3 Childs Co 19.939-873 20,861,030 -4.4 J. J. Newberry 19,369,828 17,487,496 + 10.7 Schulte-United 18,191,345 11,063,544 +64.4

*Companies financed by Merrill, Lynch & Co.

**Includes sales of Metropolitan Chain Stores, Ltd.