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By Cotten Timberlake<\/p>\n
March 10 (Bloomberg) — Tiffany & Co., the world\u2019s second- largest luxury-jewelry retailer, has decided to shutter its five-year-old chain of Iridesse pearl-jewelry shops after it lost money and posted disappointing sales.<\/p>\n
Tiffany will close the 16 stores after it reaches agreements with landlords to end the leases and sells the inventory, spokesman Mark Aaron said today. The decision was made earlier this year, said Aaron, who declined to specify the timing of the closures or to quantify the impact on Tiffany\u2019s earnings. <\/p>\n
Abandoning the shops, which sell cultured pearls ranging from $100 to $50,000, is Tiffany\u2019s third failed attempt to branch out beyond its namesake jewelry stores in recent years. The retailer recently has focused more on new jewelry designs under its main brand and on developing a smaller format for its Tiffany stores.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this environment, we just felt Iridesse wasn\u2019t a good use of resources,\u201d Aaron said in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n
Tiffany shares rose $1.26, or 7.4 percent, to $18.20 as of 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange Composite trading. They have fallen 23 percent this year.<\/p>\n
Iridesse generated less than 1 percent of the New York- based company\u2019s total sales of $2.94 billion in 2007. Tiffany reports its fourth-quarter results on March 23.<\/p>\n
Cie. Financiere Richemont AG, based in Geneva, is the world\u2019s biggest luxury-jewelry seller.<\/p>\n
To contact the reporter on this story: Cotten Timberlake in Washington at ctimberlake@bloomberg.net<\/p>\n
Source: www.bloomberg.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Cotten Timberlake March 10 (Bloomberg) — Tiffany & Co., the world\u2019s second- largest luxury-jewelry retailer, has decided to shutter its five-year-old chain of Iridesse pearl-jewelry shops after it lost money and posted disappointing sales. Tiffany will close the 16 stores after it reaches agreements with landlords to end the leases and sells the inventory, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[411],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n