JCP’s Ron Johnson Endures Grilling in Court
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Ron Johnson was smiling as he took the stand Friday to testify in the trial involving Macy’s, JC Penney and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. But over the course of nearly four hours as a Macy’s attorney grilled the charismatic executive, forcing him to clarify unflattering emails and the intent of certain documents, his calm turned to aggravation.
It was the capper to a very bad week for the JC Penney CEO. Just a day earlier, JC Penney’s stock shed 17% as the market reacted to sobering fourth-quarter results. On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson revealed that JC Penney sales plummeted 28% in the fourth quarter, closing out a year in which sales sunk an unprecedented 25% to $12.98 billion. That marks the lowest annual revenue the retailer has reported since at least 1987.
Words like “horrific,” “atrocious,” and “unprecedented” were batted around the investment community as Mr. Johnson prepared to testify in the case, which will decide whether MSLO may partner with JC Penney to produce a line of products to be showcased within shops-in-shop concepts, an issue vigorously debated given MSLO’s agreement for exclusivity in certain categories with Macy’s.
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