Dive Brief:
-
Ascena Retail Group on Thursday announced that Dan Lamadrid, senior vice president of finance and chief accounting officer, has been promoted to chief financial officer, effective Aug. 4. He will replace longtime CFO Robb Giammatteo, who will leave at the end of August, according to a company press release.
-
Lamadrid joined Ascena in 2017 as senior vice president of finance and chief accounting officer from Vitamin Shoppes, where he had been chief accounting officer. Before that he was vice president and controller at Ralph Lauren and had finance leadership roles at Hartz Mountain Corporation and Toys R Us, the company said.
-
The company has been regrouping in recent months. Its most prominent change came in May with the exit of CEO and chairman of the board David Jaffe, whose mother founded the company as "Dress Barn." He was replaced by Gary Muto, who had led the company's premium apparel division. At that time, Chief Operating Officer Brian Lynch also left.
Dive Insight:
Ascena has moved to trim its operations, including unloading its discount banners, but its financial struggles continue.
While the sale of its discount apparel brand Maurices and the ongoing shut-down of discount chain Dressbarn are designed to right the ship, they will be expensive. Moody's Investors Service in June downgraded the retail conglomerate based on its "expectations for significantly weaker than previously anticipated earnings in fiscal years 2019 and 2020 and negative free cash flow generation after charges related to the dressbarn wind down and other restructuring," the firm said in an email to Retail Dive.
Although Moody's expects "significant earnings recovery in fiscal 2020," the firm also warned that may not be enough to "start positioning Ascena for a timely and economical refinancing of its sizeable term loan due August 2022."
In addition to the change at the top financial post, Ascena in May brought on Carrie Teffner to replace Jaffe as executive board chair in the interim. She has held key finance leadership positions at Crocs and PetSmart and has served on Ascena's board since last year. In his statement last week, Muto said that Lamadrid and Teffner will both be critical to the company's financial turnaround.
