St. John Hires CEO for Chain
St. John Knits Inc. said Tuesday it has hired retail industry veteran Peter Buonocore to run the upscale women’s clothing company’s struggling home store chain, Amen Wardy Home Stores LLC.
The announcement came one day after the attorney for the chain’s namesakes--Amen Wardy Sr. and Amen Wardy Jr.--asked the courts to appoint a receiver to run the home stores. The document alleges that executives of Irvine-based St. John are mismanaging the home stores.
But St. John Chief Executive Robert E. Gray said Tuesday that Buonocore’s appointment was not related to the legal dispute. Gray said he has been talking with Buonocore for a few weeks about taking the job.
Gray said the chances of the court naming a receiver to run Amen Wardy Home Stores are “slim and none.” He declined to discuss specifics.
The company said Buonocore, 38, brings experience in operations, finance and marketing to his new job as chief executive officer, which he will start Tuesday.
The Los Angeles resident was Guess? Inc.’s vice president of retail operations and finance from 1996 until the end of last year, St. John said. Before that, he was AnnTaylor Stores Corp.’s vice president of marketing and operations from 1990 to 1996. And from 1983 to 1990, he was a divisional vice president with Lord & Taylor, a division of May Department Store Co.
At Amen Wardy, he will have his work cut out for him. The home stores subsidiary has been in the red since it was launched in 1997 and is not expected to begin making money until at least 2000, Gray said Tuesday.
The company, which operates six home-furnishings boutiques, is closing its store in Boston, Gray said, and is closely watching the performance of two others, in Dallas and Palm Beach.
Under pressure from Wall Street to improve the chain’s fortunes, St. John fired Amen Wardy Jr. as chief executive in August and named David Frankel, then a St. John executive vice president, to replace him.
But Frankel left the post two weeks ago to become president of Calvin Klein Menswear.
The request for a receiver, filed in Orange County Superior Court on Monday, was the latest salvo in a bitter feud between two high-profile families. After St. John fired Wardy, the former chief executive filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against St. John and its executives. The company countersued, accusing Wardy of diverting assets, among other things.
In seeking a receiver, the latest motion contends that “critical operations” for the home store are being conducted by St. John personnel who are “completely unqualified.”
For example, the motion said St. John President Kelly Gray was acting as “chief buyer” for the home stores when she has “neither the time nor the background” for such duties.
Amen Wardy Home is 51% owned by St. John and 49% owned by Amen Wardy Direct, a Colorado company owned by Amen Wardy Jr.; his father, Amen Wardy Sr.; and Bob Hightower.
Also on Monday, St. John’s attorneys sought an order prohibiting public disclosure of information such as fiscal projections and sales strategies that the company is being asked to produce as part of the legal dispute.
Last week, St. John accepted an offer from the founding Gray family and Vestar Capital Partners to buy the bulk of the clothing company for $30 a share, or $522 million.
