Macy’s to Close as Many as 10 of Its Stores : Retailing: It said it will consider a variety of factors, including store productivity, in deciding which locations to shutter.

R. H. Macy & Co., the fabled New York retailer struggling to emerge from bankruptcy, said Sunday that it plans to close as many as 10 stores.

The company declined to give a timetable for the closings. It said it will make an announcement by the end of the month.

Macy’s, which has been hit by the recession-induced slump in consumer sales and the burden of its huge debt, has been trying to stem the red ink with store closings and other measures since it sought protection from creditors in federal bankruptcy court in January.

The retailer denied a report in the May 4 issue of Crain’s New York Business that it was preparing to close between 15 and 30 stores. The newspaper cited a bankruptcy adviser as the source.

“We don’t envision more than 10,” a Macy’s spokesman said. Macy’s, which filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition on Jan. 27, said it will consider a variety of factors, including store productivity, in deciding which locations to close.

The closings announced Sunday, together with others announced earlier, would leave Macy’s with about 180 stores nationwide under its name and other store names.

The retailer is “in the process of determining what stores it would close, part of an ongoing store evaluation program,” the spokesman said. “We’re nearing the end of that.”

The spokesman did not say how much Macy’s is seeking to save through store closings.

The closings represent one of the first major decisions for Macy’s new leaders, co-chairmen Myron Ullman and Mark Handler. They took over from retiring Chairman Edward Finkelstein last week.

The new management was installed after a recent shake-up involving Macy’s board of directors.

In March the 134-year-old retailer reported that it lost $671.6 million in the final quarter of 1991.

Macy’s has already announced that it will close five high-fashion I. Magnin stores and 52 of its smaller specialty clothing stores.

Under bankruptcy law, a company is protected from creditors while it reorganizes and tries to work out a plan to repay its debts.

Macy’s debts total more than $3 billion. They resulted from a 1986 leveraged buyout in which the firm went private and from the purchase of other retail chains in the late 1980s.