 Couresty |
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mothers Work, Inc. (Nasdaq: MWRK), the world's leading maternity apparel retailer, today announced that Mothers Work and Sears(R) were unable to reach terms on a renewal of their leased department relationship. The Company currently operates the maternity apparel department in 502 Sears stores through sale of the Company's Two Hearts(R) Maternity branded merchandise. The Company anticipates that its relationship with Sears will terminate on June 20, 2008, the expiration date of its current agreement with Sears.Rebecca Matthias, President and Chief Creative Officer of Mothers Work, noted, "While we are disappointed about the end of our relationship with Sears, we feel the decision not to proceed with a renewal is in the best interest of our stockholders since we were unable to reach terms on a renewal which would be favorable for Mothers Work and our stockholders. As we have previously stated, we are focused on generating sales that also generate an adequate return on investment and help us to increase shareholder value -- we are not interested in generating sales that do not help deliver shareholder value. We believe our current relationship with Sears has been a beneficial one for both parties and, most importantly, for the Sears customer. Even after our relationship with Sears ends, we remain well positioned to service the needs of that customer through our Destination Maternity(R) and Motherhood Maternity(R) stores as well as through our exclusive licensed relationship with Kohl's(R) and our leased departments at Macy's(R), Babies "R" Us(R), Boscov's(R) and Gordmans(R)."
