Saks

Saks Fifth Avenue is coming back to Baltimore -- at least temporarily.The upscale retailer, which closed its department store in Owings Mills Mall nearly two years ago, said yesterday that it will sell marked-down merchandise in a 20,000-square-foot space in Hunt Valley Mall starting Dec. 12.The warehouse-style outlet will be neither a Saks Fifth Avenue store nor an Off-5th store, said Jennifer A. Mann, Saks' business publicity manager."

A story in yesterday's editions about Saks Fifth Avenuepossibly opening a distribution center in Aberdeen incorrectly identified James Fielder. He is deputy director of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. James T. Brady is the director.The Sun regrets the error.Saks Fifth Avenue, the tony department store looking to expand into the Southeast, is negotiating to open a distribution center on U.S. 40 in Aberdeen.If all goes as planned, the deal could bring 450 new jobs to Harford County within two years.

Don's now a dom. And, no, it's not as sexy as it seems. In 'Man with a Plan,' our antihero has one plan: To gain some semblance of balance by controlling everyone's lives around him. In doing so he lays down a path of destruction. He more or less imprisons Sylvia in a swanky hotel, and mortifies Ted by getting him rip-roaring drunk. This episode, the halfway mark of season six (yes, already), has two or so other subplots with Pete and Joan. But what's really prominent is Don's overwhelming lack of control in his own life, and how that intertwines with the RFK assassination.

NEW YORK -- Saks Holdings Inc. shares rose 39 percent in their first day of trading yesterday as investors raced to buy a piece of the Saks Fifth Avenue cachet and capitalize on the booming market for luxury goods.Saks' stock rose $9.625 to $34.625 in trading of 11.6 million shares, making it the second-most-active issue in U.S. markets. Saks sold a 26 percent stake, or 16 million shares, at $25 each to raise $400 million. Earlier, shares rose as high as $35.875."We knew it was going to go up but not like this.

David Saks, whose efforts on behalf of people with hearing problems led to a federal law requiring that certain telephones be compatible with hearing aids, died of heart failure Wednesday at the Northwest Hospital Center. The Randallstown resident was 81.Mr. Saks retired in 1973 as owner of Wayside Furniture, which he operated in the Baynesville area for about 20 years after working as a furniture salesman.His wife, the former Reba Sigel, who died in 1993, had served as interior designer in the business.

Two Maryland employers have warned state labor officials of layoffs that could affect nearly 400 workers. Saks Fifth Avenue said it would terminate a third of its workforce, or 223 employees, at its Aberdeen distribution and order fulfillment center starting in late May, the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said Tuesday. Julia Bentley, a Saks spokeswoman, said the retailer was opening a new fulfillment center for saks.com in Tennessee and was phasing out such jobs in Aberdeen.

NEW YORK -- Saks Fifth Avenue, one of the most venerable names in retail, said yesterday that it would be acquired for $2.1 billion by Proffitt's Inc., a Southern retailing company.The proposed deal would represent the end of an era for Saks, whose founders, Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel, probably never imagined that the famous store on natty Fifth Avenue would one day be part of a retail conglomerate based in Alcoa, Tenn.Since Saks was founded in 1924, it has undergone several changes of ownership, managing to escape the fate of many famous New York stores.

In old Hollywood movies, the stylish set all shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue. Women with gloved hands peered into windows accented with the store's signature script signage and dreamed of filling hatboxes and shopping bags with elegance and luxury. But few women wear gloves to go shopping or have much use for hatboxes anymore. As the times have changed, so has Saks -- becoming gradually more contemporary, while holding on with great determination to its upscale heritage and image. So how best to indicate to the world the department store's complex personality: New but familiar.

Theirs is a name synonymous with success, one that is able to generate consumer excitement and boost mall property values in a glutted retail marketplace. Indeed, the name Nordstrom has for years translated into retail gold.How prized a merchant are they? Just ask Rouse Co., which last week succeeded in luring the Seattle-based chain to the Mall in Columbia after seven years of trying.But when Nordstrom Inc. debuts a two-level store there in three years, customers may find a much different retail emporium than they are accustomed to in Towson or Annapolis, where Nordstrom has outlets.

CHICAGO - Another shakeup in the retail industry could be on the horizon, as J.C. Penney Co. Inc. emerges as a takeover target and Saks Inc. indicates that it might sell some stores. Stocks of the department store chains closed up 8.3 percent and 9 percent, respectively, as Wall Street paid heed to what could be two more deals in a rapidly consolidating industry. Private investment firms Cerberus Capital Management LP and Carlyle Group are teaming up to make a $16 billion to $18 billion bid for Penney, which has been lauded for its turnaround in recent years, according to a report yesterday in Women's Wear Daily.