NEW ALBANY, Ohio, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Abercrombie & Fitch's stock price went up Tuesday as CEO Michael Jeffries, who once said the chain's clothes were only for the thin, announced his retirement.
Jeffries said his departure was "effective immediately."
"I believe now is the right time for new leadership to take the company forward in the next phase of its development,"Jeffries said.
The chain, which now positions itself as a retailer of expensive casual clothes for young buyers, has had almost three years of declining same-store sales. In November, the company said same-store sales had dropped 10 percent in the third quarter, sending the stock price to its lowest point in several years.
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The market responded favorably to the announcement. Shortly after noon, the stock was at $28.16, up 6.87 percent. The stock sold for $84.51 in October 2007, its all-time high.
Jeffries, 70, joined Abercrombie in 1984. In 2013, remarks he had made in a 2006 interview with the online magazine Salon got a new burst of publicity.
He said the company's market was the "cool and popular kids."
"Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny," he said. "But then you become totally vanilla. You don't alienate anybody, but you don't excite anybody, either."
Jeffries had been criticized a couple of years earlier for Abercrombie thongs aimed at young girls with slogans like "Wink Wink." He told Salon he thought the thongs were simply cute underwear and not an attempt to sexualize prepubescent girls.
In January, Jeffries was removed as chairman. The company announced that Arthur Martinez, the current chairman, will serve as executive chairman until a Jeffries replacement is found.
The Abercrombie brand has had a complicated history. Abercrombie & Fitch opened in 1892 as a New York store selling high-end sporting goods and clothing.
The company went bankrupt in 1977, and in 1978 the name was sold to Oshman's Sporting Goods of Houston and then, in 1988, to the clothing retail company The Limited.
