Birmingham, AL, August 2, 2006--Saks Inc. continued to shrink Wednesday when it said it would sell its 38-store Parisian chain to Belk Inc. for $285 million cash.
Parisian, which has department stores in nine states in the Southeast and Midwest, had revenue of about $723 million last year.
Besides the stores, the Charlotte, N.C.-based Belk will get the Parisian headquarters building in Birmingham and a 180,000-square-foot warehouse.
Saks has been shedding its slower-growing segments since last year.
The company sold its Proffitt's and McRae's divisions to Belk last year for $623 million, and Bon-Ton purchased is Northern Department Store Group in March for $1.2 billion.
"The sale of our Parisian business is the next appropriate step in this process and one that will allow us to focus our time and resources on improving the operations of our core Saks Fifth Avenue business," Saks CEO Steve Sadoe said in a statement.
After the deal, Saks will operate 54 Saks Fifth Avenue Stores, 50 Saks Off 5th stores and 62 Club Libby Lu stores.
Belk is the nation's largest privately owned department store chain, with 277 stores in 16 Southeastern states.
