McCrory to Sell or Convert 700 TG&Y; Stores

More than 700 TG&Y; general stores, which in December were purchased by Rapid-American Corp. and made part of its McCrory Corp. subsidiary, will be sold or converted to a variety store format, McCrory said Friday.

Of TG&Y;’s 743 stores, between 40 and 50 stores are in California, a spokesman at TG&Y;’s Oklahoma City headquarters said. Many of those are in San Bernardino and Orange counties.

A release issued by McCrory from its York, Pa., headquarters said that about 200 TG&Y; stores are for sale and that “a substantial amount of interest is being shown in these stores.”

The more than 500 TG&Y; operations to be converted to the variety store format will retain the TG&Y; banner “for the foreseeable future,” the release said. The addition of the 500 stores will make McCrory one of the two largest variety retailers in the nation, the other being F. W. Woolworth.

McCrory also operates H. L. Green and J. J. Newberry variety stores.

Larry Ritchey, a McCrory spokesman, declined to say which TG&Y; stores will be sold and which will be converted.

The TG&Y; chain, which operates in 40 states, primarily in the South, consists of discount stores of 30,000 to 40,000 square feet and variety stores with about 15,000 square feet. “In some cases, there won’t be much change,” Ritchey said.

Privately held Rapid-American reportedly paid more than $300 million for TG&Y;, which was sold by Household International’s retail division when that unit was converted to private ownership in a leveraged buy-out.

Together, McCrory and TG&Y; have annual sales of more than $3 billion.

Rapid-American is headed by Stephen L. Pistner, the former president of Montgomery Ward. In an interview with Business Week magazine in January, Pistner called the acquisition of TG&Y; “a strategic fit.”