ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140051
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
Hanover Direct Inc., a catalog retailer with warehouse and distribution operations in the Roanoke Valley, on Tuesday named a new president and chief executive officer.
Rakesh Kaul, 44, will join the Weehawken, N.J.-based company March 7. He replaces Jack Rosenfeld, who resigned Jan. 1. Alan Quasha, the company's board chairman, has been acting as interim president and CEO.
Kaul most recently was vice chairman and chief operating officer of Minnetonka, Minn.-based Fingerhut Cos. Inc., a direct marketing company that logged $1.7 billion in sales in 1994. He also had been a senior vice president at Shaklee Corp., a manufacturer and marketer of nutritional products.
"The appointment of Mr. Kaul reflects the board's continuing commitment to enable Hanover Direct to succeed," Quasha said in a prepared statement. "We are committed to creating shareholder value by achieving market leadership in the specialty catalog business."
The year that just ended was a tough one for catalog merchants in general, and Hanover Direct in particular, said Allan Roness, director of research at J.W. Charles Securities in Boca Raton, Fla. Companies such as Hanover had to contend with increased paper and postage rates, as well as with overall low consumer demand.
Hanover Direct was among the weakest of the big catalog companies, Roness said, because it had so many separate catalogs to print and distribute. The company publishes 15 catalogs offering apparel, housewares and specialty gifts. It also sends four of its catalogs under various names to Sears customers.
The change in leadership, Roness said, likely is an attempt to bring new vitality into the company, whose stock closed Tuesday at $1.433/4. The stock's 52-week high was $3.183/4. Hanover Direct reported a loss of $22 million on sales of $528.6 million for the first nine months of 1995, the most recent figures available.
Fingerhut, Kaul's former company, is a strong catalog merchant, Roness said, but it, too, has had its ups and downs.
Hanover opened its 539,000-square-foot Hanover Home Fashions Center on Hollins Road in September. The distribution center ships and receives merchandise for three Hanover catalogs. Also in the Roanoke area, Hanover owns Tweeds Inc., a European-style women's clothing catalog that it purchased in 1993. The Tweeds warehouse, now called the Hanover Direct Apparel Center, houses all telemarketing and shipping for the company's women's wear catalogs.
The Roanoke Valley facilities together employ 650.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB