SELLING & MARKETING: Happy Marriage

SELLING & MARKETING

For years, Morton D. May, president of May Department Stores’ St. Louis-based chain of 35 stores, and Robert H. Levi, president of Baltimore’s and Washington’s Hecht Co., have kept their stores on friendly terms, swapping ideas about retailing trends. Last week the long friendship blossomed: May and Hecht announced a merger of the two chains and termed it “the biggest in retail history.” The new company’s president: energetic “Buster” May, 44.

With combined sales of $638,084,826 in the twelve months ending Aug 2, the new 46-store chain will rank a shade below Federated Department Stores, whose comparable sales were $640,305,483.

Ready-Made Anchor. For May, the merger was a golden chance to get a ready-made anchor in an economically stable area of the East, integrate May’s Baltimore store, which has been lagging behind other May stores, into Hecht’s Baltimore operation. Hecht stores, which will continue to use the Hecht name, will hitch their future to the bright May star, getting the advantage of May’s huge national purchasing and merchandising facilities and its solid footing in some of the fastest growing U.S. population areas, e.g., Los Angeles and Denver. If stockholders approve—and they are expected to—May Co. will swap 9¼ shares of its common stock for each ten shares of Hecht. Hecht Chairman Samuel M. Hecht will become a member of the new May board, and Levi will become a board member and vice president.

The merger joins two of the nation’s oldest store chains. Hecht was founded as a furniture store in east Baltimore in 1857 by Immigrant Peddler Samuel Hecht, four of whose five sons later entered the business (present Chairman Hecht is a grandson). May Co. got its start in 1878 in Leadville. Colo., a mining boom town where David May, a 26-year-old German immigrant, founded a clothing store. David May spread his stores through the Midwest, and his son Morton J. May, Buster May’s father and the chairman of May Co., expanded the chain coast to coast. Buster still consults with his father but has run his own show since taking over as chief executive officer in 1957.

Basement Rise. Buster started his rise in the complaint department of May’s Famous-Barr store in St. Louis during vacations from Dartmouth (’36), spent twp summers traveling through Russia, Manchuria and Japan as a photographic assistant to crack freelance photographer Julien Bryan. He worked his way through Famous-Barr’s bargain basement, after a wartime stint as a Navy officer rose to vice president and manager of the company’s two St. Louis stores before moving up to president in 1951.

As helmsman of the new chain, Buster May will need all his selling skill to outrace his rivals. He is confident that he will win, is going ahead with new May stores in San Diego, Denver and the San Fernando Valley.