L Brands Will Close Henri Bendel To Focus On Struggling Victoria's Secret & Pink

L Brands Will Close Henri Bendel To Focus On Struggling Victoria's Secret & Pink

American retailer L Brands Inc, owner of Victoria’s Secret, Pink and Bath & Body Works announced that it will be closing all 23 Henri Bendel stores, including the historic Fifth Avenue Manhattan flagship to “focus on increasing shareholder value.”

L Brands stock has had a very rough ride in recent years with sales and profits in serious decline at both Victoria’s Secret and now Pink.

Henri Bendel was founded in 1895 when Henri Bendel moved to New York City from Lafayette, La to make hats for Manhattan’s elite. It was the arrival of Geraldine Stutz as president in 1959 that put Bendel on the international fashion map with stylish shoppers carrying the store’s brown and white shopping bags in all the best places.