Founded: 1924
Incorporated: 1993
NAIC: 448310 Jewelry Stores; 454111 Electronic Shopping
SIC: 5944 Jewelry Stores
Zale Corporation is one of the largest operators of retail jewelry stores in North America. Zale operates more than 2,200 retail stores and kiosks, located mostly in malls, in all 50 states, as well as in Puerto Rico and Canada. Zale stores operate within several distinct divisions: Zales Jewelers, with about 790 stores across the United States and in Puerto Rico, focuses on mainstream, middle-income consumers, specializes heavily in diamonds, and has extensions in the form of two other divisions, Zales Outlet and the online shopping site zales.com; Gordon's Jewelers is positioned as a regional retailer for the upper-middle-income and fashion-conscious consumer, with around 280 stores operating under the Gordon's name; and the company's Canadian arm consists of approximately 190 outlets, including Peoples Jewellers, the Canadian equivalent of Zales, and Mappins Jewellers, which aims for the upper moderate slice of the market, similar to Gordon's. Zale also owns Piercing Pagoda, the largest kiosk-based retailer of gold jewelry in the United States, with more than 790 locations throughout the country offering popular-priced merchandise, mainly for teens.
Early Growth
Morris B. Zale, born in Russia but raised in Texas, opened his first jewelry store in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1924. Two years later, Zale opened a second Texas store and was joined by childhood friend, and brother-in-law, Ben Lipshy. From the beginning, Zale stores offered credit ("a penny down and a dollar a week"), with payments typically spread out over 12 months, even to its low-income customers. It leased its first locations, a practice that placed pressure on the company, grown to three stores at the beginning of the 1930s, when the company was stuck with long-term leases fixed at high, pre-Depression rents. Despite the Depression, however, the company continued to expand through the decade, opening a fourth store in Amarillo in 1934, and growing to 12 locations in Texas and Oklahoma by 1941. In that year, the company's revenues had risen to $2.73 million. Zale avoided building long-term debt by paying modest salaries and dividends to himself, Lipshy, and other family members joining the company; instead, earnings were reinvested in the company.
The years of World War II limited Zale's expansion of new locations but not its revenue growth. The devotion of raw materials to the war effort during this period led to a scarcity of most consumer items; jewelry, with limited strategic value, drew consumer interest. By 1944, Zale's revenues had doubled, to over $5 million. In that year, Zale acquired a 13th store, Corrigan's in Houston, which allowed it to move into higher-end jewelry. Two years later, revenues doubled again, passing $10 million for the year. By then, Zale had begun to operate as a big company, rather than as a collection of stores. In 1942 Zale opened a buying office in New York, which allowed the company to purchase diamonds and watches in quantity at wholesale prices. As the company grew to 19 stores in 1946, Zale set up a central design, display, and printing operation in Dallas to service its chain. The company's next step toward centralization of its operations came when it opened its own shops for building store fixtures and constructing store interiors. Company headquarters were also moved to Dallas in 1946.
The postwar boom in consumer spending brought a new period of growth to Zale, which added more than 50 stores between 1947 and 1957, the year in which the company went public. That offering, of 125,000 shares, raised $1.5 million, which, according to Fortune magazine, "appear[ed] to have been the only new money put into the company since it was started." Listed on the American Stock Exchange in 1958, the company operated 102 stores, primarily under the Zale trade name. Much of this growth came through the acquisition of existing stores while stores marketing to high-end consumers generally kept their original names. Diamonds formed the largest part of company sales, with diamond rings, other diamond jewelry, and diamond watches providing about 38 percent of revenues; costume jewelry and watches added to sales, while the company also sold electric appliances, silverware, dinnerware, luggage, cameras, eyeglasses, and other items.
With sales topping $37 million in 1958, Zale moved closer to complete vertical integration of the company when it was invited to purchase its diamonds directly from the Central Selling Organization, otherwise known as the diamond syndicate. Based in London and serving a group of diamond producers including De Beers of South Africa, the diamond syndicate represented more than 80 percent of the world's supply of rough diamonds. The syndicate controlled not only the world's diamond output but also the choice of companies allowed to purchase its diamonds, and which diamonds a company was allowed to purchase. Zale, because of its integrated operations, including cutting, polishing, and setting operations in New York, and its ability to market the full scale of diamonds from the smallest to the largest, most expensive diamonds, became the only U.S. jewelry retailer invited to purchase directly from the syndicate.
Branching Out and Buckling Under
By the mid-1960s, Zale operated the nation's, and the world's, largest retail jewelry chain. Its 403 stores produced $81 million in 1963, with a net income of nearly $5 million. Diamonds continued to represent the largest share of Zale's sales, about $27 million. Operating manufacturing plants in New York, Tel Aviv, and Puerto Rico, the company also operated a wholesale division, selling to other jewelry retailers. Zale also made and sold watches under its own Baylor's label, buying mechanisms from Switzerland. The company in 1962 had also bought Bailey Banks & Biddle, a high-end jewelry retailer based in Philadelphia that was founded in 1832.
By 1965, Zale found itself with a surplus of cash. Its business was tied up in its jewelry store operations, and the development of the first synthetic diamonds, at the time viewed as a potential replacement for real diamonds in the retail jewelry trade, frightened the company into diversifying its product base. The company decided to move into the broader retailing field, purchasing the Texas-based Skillern drugstore chain. This acquisition was followed by forays into budget fashion apparel, sporting goods, shoes, furniture, and a chain of airport-based tobacco and newsstand concessions. By 1974, in addition to 956 retail jewelry stores, Zale had grown to include 351 shoe stores, 83 drugstores, 146 clothing stores, 25 sporting goods stores, 13 home furnishings stores, and 13 tobacco/newsstand concessions. Together, these divisions produced revenues nearing $600 million but half the company's revenues continued to come from its jewelry operations, with one highlight coming from the 1969 purchase of the Light of Peace diamond for $1.4 million, which also contributed three-quarters of the company's more than $30 million in 1974 profits.
Trouble began to brew for Zale in the mid-1970s. Charges that the company's chief financial officer had been embezzling funds--the CFO was eventually acquitted--led to investigations from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other government agencies into alleged misappropriation of funds, including avoiding some $27 million in federal tax payments. These investigations would culminate in a $78 million tax charge brought by the IRS against Zale in 1982, and contributed to the replacement of Ben Lipshy, president of the company since 1957 and chairman of the board since 1971, by M. B. Zale's son, Donald Zale, as chairman in 1980. By then, Zale's more than 1,400 stores included international operations in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, West Germany, Canada, and South Africa.
At the beginning of the decade, Zale abruptly began selling its non-jewelry retail operations. Despite raising revenues, which topped $1 billion in 1980, these operations produced little of the company's profits. By then, also, the synthetic diamond scare had passed; these found industrial applications, but could not be successfully developed for retail sales, partly because of consumer insistence on purchasing real diamonds. In the space of a few weeks at the end of 1980, Zale sold the Skillern chain to Revco, Inc., for $60 million; its 37-store sporting goods chain went to Oshman's Sporting Goods, Inc., for $14 million; and its Butler Shoe division, with 385 stores, went to Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $100 million. Except for its newsstand/tobacco concessions, which would grow to 90 stores, and its O.G. Wilson catalog showroom division, the company had come back to its core jewelry business.
Jewelry sales slumped across the industry during the recession of the early 1980s. Worse, gold and diamond values, which had traditionally seen steady appreciation, began to fluctuate wildly. Zale saw revenues fall to $939 million in 1982. Profits slipped more drastically, from $33 million in 1981 to a loss of $6 million in 1982, the result, in part, of a $10.6 million charge brought on by the company's settlement with the IRS for its 1970s tax liabilities. The collapse of the oil industry in the Southwest, where the highest concentration of Zale stores were located, also hurt the company's sales. The company struggled to maintain its share of the jewelry market, while facing increasing competition from department stores. Zale, which had perennially relied on sales of wedding rings for its chief source of revenues, had fallen behind the times, particularly with the decline in marriages since the 1970s. Meanwhile, it saw customers departing for the larger assortments of jewelry, especially gold jewelry, available elsewhere.
Part of Zale's troubles were blamed on the lingering influence of its old management, which had been manufacturing-oriented, rather than marketing-oriented, allowing further inroads into the jewelry market by retailers more responsive to trends in consumer demands. Breaking the hold of former management, who were still largely loyal to M. B. Zale, would take several years and eventually a relocation of the company's headquarters. Zale struggled to recover from the recession, but sales in its 1,500 stores barely budged, remaining around $1 billion.
The Peoples' Takeover
In 1986 the company posted a net loss of over $60 million, including a restructuring charge of about $80 million as it disposed of its European retail operations, and the last of its non-jewelry divisions, and a $50 million write-down of old inventory. By that time, Zale had already rejected an attempt at a takeover by Peoples Jewellers of Canada. Peoples, led by Irving Gerstein, was looking to expand beyond its Canadian base. That company already owned 15 percent of Zale's stock, purchased for $70 million in 1980. When Zale's problems rose in the early 1980s, Peoples attempted to sell its stock back to Zale, but Zale refused to buy.
Critical of Zale's efforts to turn the company around, Gerstein became determined to take over the company. Under Texas law, however, Peoples needed approval from at least two-thirds of Zale's stockholders to complete a takeover, and the Zale family controlled more than one-third of the stock.
In early 1986, Peoples, aided by Drexel Burnham Lambert Incorporated, made offers of $420 million and $470 million to take over the company. The Zale family refused to sell. Gerstein next met with the Swarovski company, an Austrian maker of crystal and jewelry, which agreed to back Peoples in its next takeover effort. Later in 1986, Gerstein constructed lending arrangements that allowed him to tender an offer of $50 per share of Zale stock, nearly double its trading price. The Zale family, under pressure from its own investment company, at last gave in and agreed to sell the company. By the end of that year, Peoples and Swarovski, each with 50 percent ownership, took Zale private.
Gerstein moved quickly to settle some of the company's debt, selling some $700 million in junk bonds, leaving the company about $900 million in debt. His next step was to close Zale's New York and Puerto Rico manufacturing operations, instead turning to vendors for store stock. He also sold the company's diamond inventory and reduced the company's large advertising budget. With expenses reduced by $80 million, the company's net earnings rose, allowing Gerstein to declare a $5 million dividend to both Peoples and Swarovski. In 1989 the company acquired Gordon Jewelry Corporation, the nation's second largest retail jewelry chain. Three years later, Zale was on the verge of collapse.
Bankruptcy and a Sharp Turnaround
At the beginning of the 1990s, Zale, including the Gordon's chain, had grown to 2,000 stores, with revenues of $1.3 billion. However, the international recession of the 1990s, the economic uncertainty produced by the Persian Gulf War, and a new luxury tax on purchases over $10,000 quickly took their toll on jewelry sales. In 1990 Zale posted a $64 million loss. The following year's losses amounted to over $106 million in the first six months alone. By the end of the year, the company was unable to make a $52 million interest payment on its $850 million in debt.
Zale attempted to restructure the company, announcing the closing of 400 stores and a reduction of its headquarters, but its creditors began threatening to force the company into bankruptcy. By the end of January 1992, Zale joined the growing list of failing jewelry companies and petitioned for voluntary bankruptcy.
When Zale emerged from Chapter 11 in 1993 as an independent, publicly traded company (Peoples also went into bankruptcy and lost control of Zale), its debt was settled and it had 700 fewer stores. In April 1994 former Macy's executive Robert DiNicola was hired as chairman and CEO to lead the company back to profitability. The new management team worked to restructure the company, creating separate and independent divisions of the Zales and Gordon's stores. Zales was repositioned as the McDonald's of jewelry retail, with national ads promoting chainwide, standardized merchandise. Gordon's was positioned as more of a regional player, with its product line tailored for the local market; it also aimed for customers slightly more affluent than Zales' middle-class customers, placing Gordon's between Zales and the company's upmarket chains, such as Bailey Banks & Biddle. In all three chains, the merchandising practices were overhauled through a "key item" approach in which each format's best-selling products were given special prominence. The key products were promoted heavily in advertising, and each store began keeping a generous supply of the items to make sure customers could always find them in stock. DiNicola also brought to Zale a newfound focus on tying promotions to the various gift-giving and high-traffic holiday periods that occur throughout the year, rather than depending so heavily on the November-December shopping season, as had been company tradition. At the same time, Zale began spending millions of dollars remodeling stores and also opened new outlets and closed additional underperforming units. During 1995, for example, the company opened 35 units, closed 85, and remodeled 150.
While the overall number of store units was remaining fairly constant in the mid-1990s as the restructuring unfolded, the Zales chain was being steadily expanded. The number of Zales outlets grew from 521 in 1994 to 642 in 1997. The latter year saw Zale initiate additional changes to its lineup of formats. The company's Diamond Park Fine Jewelers division, which at the time operated 186 leased jewelry shops within such department stores as Parisian and Marshall Field's, was sold to Finlay Enterprises, Inc., for about $63 million. Zale also announced late in 1997 that it would convert all of its upscale chains, including Corrigan's, to Bailey Banks & Biddle Jewelers in the spring of 1998. Following this move, Zale had three national jewelry chains positioned in three different segments of the market. It could begin expanding Bailey Banks & Biddle backed by national advertising and promotion.
By 1998 Zale appeared to be fully recovered from its fall into bankruptcy. Revenues that year hit $1.43 billion, a 43 percent increase over the $920 million figure of 1994. Net income during the same period nearly tripled, from $23 million to $63 million. Perhaps even more importantly, for the first time in the company's history Zale posted profits in all four quarters of the 1998 fiscal year. Historically, Zale had made all of its profits in the second quarter, which included the November-December shopping season. Another important statistic, sales per store, was also increasing smartly, growing from $770 million in 1994 to $1.17 billion in 1998. At the end of 1998, there were 701 Zales stores, 317 Gordon's, and 107 Bailey Banks & Biddle outlets.
Expanding Aggressively, Up and Down Years
Zale's improved financial health provided additional opportunities for expansion beyond the opening of new stores. The company had entered the direct selling business in 1996 when it produced its first sales catalog, then followed up with the launch of zale.com (later relaunched as zales.com) as its Internet shopping site. In 1998 a new division called Zales Outlet was formed, and ten Zales Outlet stores were soon opened throughout the country to pursue sales growth through the burgeoning outlet mall channel. Zale envisioned that there was long-term potential for between 150 and 200 outlet locations nationwide.
The company also felt confident enough about its future to complete two major acquisitions. In June 1999 Zale spent about $75.3 million to acquire Peoples Jewellers Corporation, the same firm that had so disastrously acquired Zale in 1986. Peoples had gone through its own period of bankruptcy, and at the time of the acquisition was the leading Canadian jewelry retailer, with 176 stores. Most of these were Peoples Jewellers outlets, which were essentially the Canadian equivalent of the Zales chain, with a couple of dozen or so Mappins Jewelers stores, which were similar to Gordon's. In September 2000 Zale acquired Piercing Pagoda, Inc., for about $260 million. This company's outlets, most of which were mall kiosks operating under the Piercing Pagoda name, catered primarily to teens and offered low-priced gold jewelry--including chains, charms, bracelets, rings, and earrings--and a selection of silver and diamond jewelry. One of the firm's marketing tactics was to offer free ear piercing with the purchase of earrings. Because the typical Piercing Pagoda customer was unlikely to shop at a Zales or any of Zale Corporation's other outlets, Zale saw this acquisition as a way to further expand its presence in malls without cannibalizing existing sales.
In between the two acquisitions, a number of other significant events occurred. In September 1999 Beryl B. Raff was promoted to president and CEO of Zale, with DiNicola remaining chairman. Raff had worked with DiNicola at Macy's and was hired in 1994 by DiNicola from Macy's, where she had been the department store's top jewelry executive. In July 2000 Zale sold its private-label credit card operation to Associates First Capital Corporation for about $542 million. By doing so, Zale eliminated its exposure to bad consumer debt, an increasing problem in the late 1990s and into the 21st century as personal bankruptcies were increasing steadily. As part of the deal, Associates agreed to continue to operate Zale's credit card business as a third party. Zale used proceeds from the deal to pay down debt and help fund the acquisition of Piercing Pagoda. Just prior to the completion of the Piercing Pagoda deal, DiNicola retired as chairman of Zale, having shepherded the company to its strong position at the end of the 2000 fiscal year, when the company reported record net income of $112 million on record revenues of $1.79 billion. Zale ended 2000 with 2,372 outlets, including 827 Zales, 309 Gordon's, 119 Bailey Banks & Biddle, 171 Peoples Jewellers/Mappins Jewelers, and 946 of the Piercing Pagoda locations. With DiNicola's retirement, Raff became CEO and chairman.
Raff's stay at the top proved short-lived, however, as Zale began suffering from disappointing sales during the 2000 holiday shopping season, when the company reported a 3.1 percent decrease in comparable store sales. Raff resigned in February 2001, and DiNicola, who had remained on the board of directors, became chairman and CEO once again. In the weakening business climate, Zale had $150 million in overstock merchandise and had failed to lower its capital expenditures to match the economic situation. This was particularly true in the company's Internet operation, which generated less than $10 million per year but was the subject of an ambitious expansion under Raff, an expansion halted once DiNicola was back in charge. DiNicola began getting the company's inventory under control, writing off $25 million in the second quarter of 2001, and took a more conservative approach to the business in keeping with the uncertain state of the economy during the first half of 2001. DiNicola also overhauled the company's team of top managers as part of his effort to return Zale to the strong position of growth and profitability it had enjoyed in the late 1990s.
By 2002 DiNicola's efforts appeared to have stabilized Zale's operations as comparable-store sales were up 1.5 percent for the year, while the revenue figure of $2.19 billion represented a 5 percent increase over the previous year and net income was up sharply. At year-end, DiNicola retired once again from his position as CEO while remaining chairman. Promoted to the CEO slot was Mary Forté, previously chief merchandise officer. Forté had joined Zale in 1994 as head of Gordon's and then was named chief administrative officer in 2000. She had previous stints at Federated Department Stores Inc. and QVC, Inc.
Zale in fiscal 2003 reported a net loss of $40.6 million stemming from a $136.3 million charge taken to write down the value of Piercing Pagoda. The company bounced back the following year with earnings of $106.5 million. The revenues of $2.3 billion represented a 4 percent gain, while comparable-store sales grew by a similar percentage.
Continuing its history of ups and downs, Zale suffered from poor sales during the 2004 holiday season, during which comparable-store sales fell by nearly 1 percent. One response to this latest disappointment was the closure of 32 underperforming Bailey Banks & Biddle stores, a reduction of that chain by about one-third. In a more radical move, the management team shook up the core Zales chain because of its own struggles, which were thought to be attributable to increased competition from discounters, including Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which by this time had become the largest seller of jewelry in the United States. In advance of the crucial holiday season for 2005, nearly a third of the merchandise at Zales outlets, principally inexpensive, lower-quality diamond jewelry, was replaced with more upscale and fashion-conscious items, particularly 14-karat gold and sterling-silver pieces. This shift was accompanied by the replacement of Zales' decades-old marketing slogan, "The Diamond Store," with a new tagline, "Be Brilliant," which was meant to reflect the fashionable new image.
The move upscale proved disastrous as some customers were dissuaded by the chain's suddenly higher prices, while many of Zales' core male shoppers found the new items inappropriate for a Christmas gift, viewing diamonds as more romantic than the new gold and silver pieces. Compounding the situation were ordering snafus that caused some stores to suffer low inventory during this critical shopping season. In the end, the Zales chain saw its comparable-store sales slide 4 percent during November and December 2005, at the same time that the U.S. stores of Zale's chief rival, Signet Group plc, were enjoying a 5.5 percent sales increase. In a further setback, Zale lost its long-held position as the leading U.S. operator of retail jewelry stores as Signet rode its stellar 2005 holiday showing into the top position.
2006 and Beyond: Return to Roots Under New Leadership
In the wake of this latest downturn, Zale's board of directors ousted Forté in late January 2006 and named Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Burton interim CEO. Burton had been a board member since 2003 and had prior stints as chief executive at specialty retailer Cosmetic Center, Inc., quick printing franchiser PIP Printing, and hair-salon chain Supercuts, Inc. While carrying out its search for a permanent CEO and beginning to lay the groundwork for the 2006 holiday season, Zale became the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into the firm's accounting for extended-service agreements, leases, and payroll accrual, as well as executive compensation and severance, earnings forecasts, stock trading, and the timing of certain vendor payments. Although the SEC ultimately concluded its probe without recommending any enforcement action, Zale's CFO, Mark Lenz, was eventually fired for shifting vendor payments from one month to the next in a move that increased net cash flow for fiscal 2005. In another development during this chaotic period, Zale entered into exploratory discussions with Signet about a possible merger, but the talks soon broke off. In July 2006 Burton was named to the CEO post on a permanent basis.
During her stint as interim leader, Burton had already begun returning the Zales chain to its roots. The merchandise selection went back to a heavy focus on diamond rings and jewelry, while advertising focused once again on value rather than fashion as well as centering again on "The Diamond Store" slogan. The results for the 2006 holiday season were mixed. While Zale failed to reach its companywide sales and earnings targets, the Zales chain posted its first comparable-store sales increase in three years and its first operating earnings in four years. Overall results for the fiscal year ending in July 2007 showed revenues flat at $2.44 billion, comparable-store sales down 0.2 percent, and earnings up about 10 percent, to $59.3 million. In August 2007 Zale continued its turnaround efforts with the centralization of the merchandising, buying, and sourcing functions for its mid-market brands--Zales, Zales Outlet, Gordon's, Peoples, and Mappins. This streamlining was expected to yield both operational efficiencies and cost savings. In addition, the company launched a search to fill the newly created position of chief operating officer, a post envisioned to eliminate the need for separate brand presidents.
At the same time, as part of its determination to tighten its focus on its core mid-market jewelry business, Zale elected to divest its high-end chain, Bailey Banks & Biddle. In September 2007 the company reached an agreement to sell the 70-unit chain to Finlay Enterprises for $200 million. This left only the lower-end Piercing Pagoda as falling outside Zale's core mid-market and led to speculation concerning the possible divestment of that chain as well.
Principal Subsidiaries
Zale Delaware, Inc.; Zale Puerto Rico, Inc.; Dobbins Jewelers, Inc. (Guam); Zale Life Insurance Company; Zale Indemnity Company; Jewel Re-Insurance Ltd. (Barbados); Zale Employees Child Care Association, Inc.; Jewelers Credit Corporation; ZAP, Inc.; Zale International, Inc.; Zale Canada Co.; Zale Canada Diamond Sourcing, Inc.
Principal Operating Units
Zales Jewelers; Zales Outlet; ZLC Direct; Gordon's Jewelers; Peoples Jewellers; Mappins Jewellers; Piercing Pagoda.
Principal Competitors
Signet Group plc; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; Tiffany & Co.; Helzberg Diamonds; J. C. Penney Company, Inc.; Finlay Enterprises, Inc.; Friedman's Inc.; Whitehall Jewellers, Inc.; Sears Holdings Corporation; QVC, Inc.
Further Reading
"All That Glitters: Zale, Nation's Largest Retail Jeweler, Headed for Peak Profits," Barron's, July 27, 1981, pp. 40+.
Baldwin, Pat, "Faded Luster: Zale CEO Recalls Jewelry Chain's Path to Bankruptcy," Dallas Morning News, November 24, 1986, p. 1A.
------, "Zale Agrees to Chapter 11," Dallas Morning News, January 24, 1992, p. 1D.
Bancroft, Thomas, "Zale's Woes," Forbes, June 22, 1992, p. 46.
Beres, Glen A., "Zale Flexes Its Mall Muscle," Jewelers Circular Keystone, December 1997, pp. 60+.
Braverman, Beth, "Zale to Close 30 Bailey Banks & Biddle Stores," National Jeweler, October 1, 2005, pp. 1, 12.
Feldman, Amy, "Shaking Things Up," Forbes, October 23, 1995, pp. 260+.
Forest, Stephanie Anderson, "Anything Under Zale's Tree?" Business Week, December 23, 1991, pp. 30+.
Gubernick, Lisa, "To Catch a Falling Star," Forbes, June 2, 1986, pp. 71+.
Halkias, Maria, "Associates Buys Zale's Credit Cards," Dallas Morning News, July 11, 2000, p. 13D.
------, "Board Has Reset Zale Leadership," Dallas Morning News, May 30, 2006, p. 1D.
------, "Former Zale CEO to Return," Dallas Morning News, February 13, 2001, p. 1D.
------, "Polishing a Gem in the Rough," Dallas Morning News, December 7, 1994, p. 1D.
------, "Zale Backing Off Strategy As a 2nd Top Exec Leaves," Dallas Morning News, February 18, 2006, p. 1D.
------, "Zale, FTC Settle Advertising Dispute," Dallas Morning News, February 11, 1997, p. 4D.
------, "Zale Promotes President to CEO," Dallas Morning News, September 8, 1999, p. 2D.
------, "Zale Reports Lower Profits, Begins 'Rebuilding' Effort," Dallas Morning News, March 8, 2001.
------, "Zale's CEO Leaves: Board Asked Forte to Quit," Dallas Morning News, January 31, 2006, p. 1D.
------, "Zale to Acquire Peoples Jewellers," Dallas Morning News, March 17, 1999, p. 2D.
Hansard, Steph, "Zale Revamping Stores to Ring Up More Sales," Dallas Morning News, April 27, 1986, p. 1H.
Hudson, Kris, "Zale Ends Merger Talks with Signet," Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2006, p. A11.
------, "Zale Makeover Races Holiday Deadline," Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2005, p. B4.
Hudson, Kris, and Joann S. Lublin, "Zale Interim CEO, 'Betsy' Burton, Is Permanent Pick," Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2006, p. A12.
Mack, Toni, "Polishing the Gem," Forbes, January 28, 1985, p. 64.
McDonald, John, "Diamonds for the Masses," Fortune, December 1994, p. 134.
Mehlman, William, "Canadian Admirer Gets Cold Shoulder from Cash-Rich Zale," Insiders' Chronicle, February 2, 1981, p. 1.
Moin, David, "DiNicola: Zale Will Shine Again," Women's Wear Daily, March 8, 2001, pp. 8+.
------, "Once in Bankruptcy, Zale Outlines Program to Restore the Luster," Women's Wear Daily, June 15, 1998, pp. 1+.
------, "Taking Zale Further Down the Growth Trail," Women's Wear Daily, August 31, 2000, p. 15.
Parmley, Suzette, "Finlay to Buy Jeweler Bailey Banks," Philadelphia Inquirer, September 28, 2007.
Posnock, Susan Thea, "Zale Names New President, Vows to Court 'Middle America' Again," National Jeweler, August 16, 2006, pp. 1, 29.
Reda, Susan, "Turnaround at Zale Highlights Resurgence of Jewelry Business," Stores, April 1997, pp. 62, 64.
Shuster, William George, "The New Zale: Focus on 'Basics' Brings Success," Jewelers Circular Keystone, March 1996, pp. 80-87.
------, "The Tale of Zale: A 75-Year Retrospective," Jewelers Circular Keystone, March 1999, pp. 148+.
------, "Zale Moves Quickly to 'Get Back on Track,'" JCK's High-Volume Jeweller, May 2001, pp. 28, 30.
------, "Zale Strategy: Return to Fundamentals," Jewelers Circular Keystone, September 1994, p. 140.
Shuster, William George, and Glen Beres, "'Cornerstone Principles' Will Guide Zale Growth, Says Raff," Jewelers Circular Keystone, January 2001, p. 138.
Simnacher, Joe, "Zale, Houston-Based Gordon Jewelry to Merge," Dallas Morning News, May 25, 1989, p. 1D.
Weil, Jonathan, "Once-Fading Zale Has Polished Its Act and May Be Ready to Shine," Wall Street Journal, September 3, 1997, p. T2.
"Why Zale Glitters in More Than Jewelry," Business Week, February 16, 1974, p. 100.
Wilson, Marianne, "Putting the Sparkle Back in Zale," Chain Store Age, January 1999, pp. 48-49.
Zellner, Wendy, "Will Anybody Ever Grab the Ring at Zale?" Business Week, February 28, 1994, p. 38.
Zimmerman, Ann, "Lost Sparkle: Chasing Upscale Customers Tarnishes Mass-Market Jeweler," Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2006, pp. A1, A12.
------, "Zale Chairwoman Raff Resigns; Retired DiNicola to Take Helm," Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2001, p. B8.
------, "Zale's Beryl Raff Is Named Chairman As DiNicola Retires amid Record Profit," Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2000, p. B2.
------, "Zale Seeks Smooth Transition in Picking Forte As Next CEO," Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2002, p. B15.
------, "Zale's Lackluster Results Tarnish a Jewel Among Retailers," Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2001, p. B6.
— M. L. Cohen; Updated by David E. Salamie
