“An American Legend” looks at the 162-year old retail giant, Macy’s.

Macy’s is an iconic American Company, but like many brick and mortar retailers, it has been struggling to maintain market share. For this case study find the company’s most recent financial statements, including the income statement and balance sheet. There are many sources of this data, but one quick source is Morningstar.com. If you enter the company’s ticket symbol, “M” in the quote box, you will find a report on the company’s stock price as well as a host of other information, such as performance, key ratios, and financials. On the financial tab, you can find the income statement and balance sheet for the past five years.

As the case study notes, Macy’s has been struggling to maintain market share, and the entire retail industry has been under increasing attack from Amazon.com and other online retailers.

Also, in February 2020 (just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit us full-force), Macy’s announced a new three-year strategic initiative called “Polaris”, intended to “stabilize profitability and position the company for growth.” You can read Macy’s press release here:

https://www.macysinc.com/investors/news-events/press-releases/detail/1608/macys-inc-announces-three-year-polaris-strategy-to (Links to an external site.)

Whenever Macy’s and its customers emerge from COVID-19 shutdown, the Polaris strategy will seek to turn Macy’s around.

What are the five major components of the Polaris strategy?

Having examined the financial performance and ratios you have calculated in the previous questions, which components of Polaris do you believe will have the most impact for Macy’s? Why? Which components do you think may not have as great an impact on Macy’s performance? Why?

Sample Solution