USA: AnnTaylor Plans Clothing Focus, Website Write-Downs
Women's career clothing retailer The AnnTaylor Stores Corporation says it will have quarterly pre-tax costs of $17 million as it writes down assets, discontinues its cosmetics business and cancels some merchandise orders to control inventory. The company is writing down assets from its website, which failed to achieve the sales volume that had been expected before its introduction in November 2000, and says it will stop selling cosmetics to focus on clothing.