Execs unshaken by Flick's retirement

Discount Store News, Dec 8, 1997

With the retirement of Warren Flick, 53, as president and coo of U.S. stores, Kmart loses a seasoned, hands-on apparel executive. Andrew Giancamilli was quickly named as president and gmm. And industry veterans are confident that the programs and personnel that Flick put in place at the Troy, Mich.-based discounter will have enough legs to keep Kmart on track.

"I think the most important thing is that the people who are merchandising and buying apparel for Kmart now are excellent merchants in the discount environment," says Robert Luehrs, president of H.I.S./Chic. "Take Jack Smailes (vice president and gmm), he has the background. Going all the way back to Gold Circle and Hills, Smailes has been in the apparel industry for a long time.

"If Flick had left when the other, older merchandising staff was in place, there would have been big trouble. Not that those people weren't as qualified for the discount business as the ones who are there now, but they came from a department store background. Now, the people who Flick are people who have experience marketing apparel in a discount store."

Mark Abramoff, president of neckwear manufacturer Ralph Marlin, agrees with Luehrs. "I don't think Flick's exit is going to have much of an effect on their current apparel merchandising strategies," he says. "I feel that they've been going in the right direction and seeing progress with what they've been doing. So I don't think that [Giancamilli] is going to want to come in and change it right away. At least, I hope not."

Barbara Failer, president of South Street Solutions Inc., a Philadelphia-based marketing, operations and consulting firm, thinks that Flick's exit might affect Kmart because it places an executive without Flick's apparel background in position.

"We have to wonder, now that Kmart is bringing over someone who is primarily out of hard lines, whether or not they might be planning to scale apparel back," she says.

But would Kmart executives really pull in the reigns on one of their highest margin businesses? The answers should be on the selling floor soon.