Herbert Marcus, Sr., his sister Carrie
Marcus Neiman and her husband, A. L. Neiman, came from Atlanta, Georgia
with $25,000 to found the Neiman-Marcus retail establishment in Dallas,
Texas, on September 10, 1907. Ironically, before the family members came
to Dallas, they had an opportunity to invest in a new "sugary soda pop
business" in Atlanta. The family decided to pass on investing in the
business, which later became Coca-Cola. For this reason, early company
CEO Stanley Marcus was quoted in 1957 as saying the company was "founded
on bad business judgment."
Over the last 20 years, ownership of Neiman Marcus has passed through several hands. In June 1987, the company was spun-off from its retail parent, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, and became a publicly listed company. General Cinema, later to become Harcourt General, still had a roughly 60% controlling interest until 1999, when Neiman Marcus was fully spun-off from its parent company. On May 2, 2005, Neiman Marcus Group was the subject of a leveraged buyout (LBO), selling itself to two private equity firms, Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus. In 1952, Stanley Marcus introduced a new tradition of having extravagant and unusual gifts in each year's Christmas catalogue; the idea was sparked when journalist Edward R. Murrow contacted Marcus to ask if the store would be offering anything unusual that might interest his radio listeners; Marcus invented on the spot an offering of a live Black Angus bull accompanied by a sterling silver barbecue cart, subsequently altering the catalog to include his new idea, priced at $1,925.
In the fall of 2004, Neiman Marcus launched a new store within a store concept, the showroom of Neiman Marcus. This new department is dedicated to selling the high-end furniture and home collections previously only available through Neiman Marcus companion catalogues, The Horchow Collection and NM by Mail. The six Neiman Marcus stores that house the collection are located in Plano-Dallas MSA (Willow Bend), San Francisco (Union Square), Scottsdale (Fashion Square), Chicago (Michigan Avenue), Oak Brook (Oakbrook Center) and Minneapolis (Nicollet Mall). Source: Wikipedia - News Reports
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