ClothesTime Inc. Fills Its Long-Vacant President’s Post

ClothesTime Inc., which expects record fiscal 1987 earnings of $12 million on $160 million in sales, is outfitting itself with a new president, the Anaheim women’s clothing retailer said Tuesday.

The off-price chain said Norman Abramson will fill the long-vacant post of president and chief operating officer--jobs previously held by Gordon Neilson, who resigned in October, 1985, to pursue personal interests.

Abramson joined ClothesTime in April, 1986, as executive vice president and chief operating officer.

On Tuesday, Wall Street analyst Stewart R. Spector said that Abramson “has done a phenomenal job.”

ClothesTime said its anticipated fiscal 1987 earnings should rise 20% from $10 million in fiscal 1986. Although final results will not be available until March 16, the company estimated that gross revenue for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31 will climb 26% from sales of $126.5 million the previous year.

Spector, an analyst with Furman Selz Mager Dietz & Birney in New York, said that ClothesTime has a pretax profit margin of more than 15% with an average rate of return on equity of more than 45%. “That’s the best set of financials in the retail industry,” he said, adding that, with no debt, the company is in a good position to finance its aggressive expansion plans.

When ClothesTime went public in 1983, it operated 98 stores. Now a 263-store chain, the company said it plans to at least triple the number of its stores over the next five years, to as many as 1,000.

With the new stores, the company expects to see sales and earnings jump 25% in fiscal 1988. “It’s a well-organized move across the country,” said Raymond DeAngelo, Clothestime’s vice chairman and co-founder. “More stores, more dollars, more earnings.”