Sam Zell, the Chicago-based investor who helped...

Sam Zell, the Chicago-based investor who helped engineer the financial rescue of Carter Hawley Hale Stores, Thursday was named chairman of the company.

Zell, elected by Carter Hawley’s board of directors, succeeds Philip M. Hawley as chairman of the retailing company, owner of the Broadway department store chain.

Hawley, also former president of the company, announced his plans to relinquish both posts five months ago after 24 years at the helm. Hawley will retain a position on the board of directors.

Carter Hawley last month selected David Dworkin, chairman of the London-based Storehouse department store chain, for the post of president and chief executive. The company announced Thursday that Dworkin has also been elected to Carter Hawley’s board of directors.

Zell’s investment firm, Zell-Chilmark Fund, helped rescue Carter Hawley by buying most of the retailer’s unsecured debt in exchange for about 70% of its common stock last year.

That deal helped Carter Hawley expedite its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company, burdened by debt and the recession-related sales slump, filed for reorganization in February, 1991, and emerged from bankruptcy in October, 1992.

Zell is known as the “grave dancer” because he has a reputation for rescuing troubled firms. Many industry analysts had expected Zell to assume the chairmanship of Carter Hawley.

“He’s a savvy investor, and if he surrounds himself with good merchandising people, the company has a good shot at surviving,” said Richard Nelson, an industry analyst at Duff & Phelps in Chicago.