L Brands

Early history

Bella Cabakoff was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and moved to Columbus as a toddler.^[4] At age 21, she became the youngest buyer for the Lazarus department store chain. After spending over 20 years working for Lazarus, in 1951 she and her husband Harry Wexner opened a women's clothing store named Leslie's (after their son) on State Street. This store became the training ground for Leslie "Les" Wexner. In 1963, he borrowed $5,000 from his aunt and $5,000 from the bank and opened a store at the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, Ohio. This store was named "The Limited" because the store focused on clothing for younger women, unlike his parents' general merchandise store. Later in 1964, Bella and Harry closed their store to join their son in his venture.

The original board consisted of only the three family members and longtime friend Jim Waldron, who served as Senior Vice President. Bella Wexner served as secretary until her death in 2001, Harry as chairman (he served until his death in 1975), and Leslie succeeded his father as the chairman and later became CEO. As of 2014 he and his family continue to own 17% of LB. In 1969, Wexner took The Limited Brands public and sold 47,600 share at $7.25 a share. In 1977, The Limited moved into its main headquarters on Morse Road in Columbus, from which L Brands still operates today. In 1982, The Limited was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange.^[5]

Acquisitions and divestitures

The 1980s started a string of acquisitions. In 1982, the Victoria's Secret brand, store, and catalogue were purchased from Roy Raymond for $1 million.^[6] Also in 1982, 207 Lane Bryant stores were purchased. In 1985, the exclusive Henri Bendel store on Fifth Avenue in New York City was purchased for $10 million and 798 Lerner stores for $297 million. Finally, in 1988, 25 Abercrombie & Fitch stores were purchased for $46 million. In 1996 The Limited ended its ownership of the A&F brand, when it was spun off into a publicly traded company.^[7]

The 1990s saw the initial development of the Limited Too, Bath & Body Works, Structure, and Victoria's Secret Beauty. Later in 1998, several Bath & Body Works stores were converted to The White Barn Candle Company stores to begin a home fragrance brand.

In 2005 Limited Brands purchased home fragrance manufacturer Slatkin & Company.^[8]

On August 3, 2007, Limited Brands sold 75% ownership of its flagship Limited chain to buyout firm Sun Capital Partners, Inc. In 2010, the remaining 25% of shares were also purchased by Sun Capital. Stefan M. Selig from Bank of America was involved in these deals.^[9] The Limited announced on its website that all The Limited stores in the United States had officially closed their doors on January 7, 2017. The web retail operation of The Limited stores, thelimited.com, was announced to continue to be open for business and ship nationwide.^[10]Despite this, The Limited online also soon filed for bankruptcy and discontinued all services.^[11]However, the brand was revived in mid-2017 by Sycamore Partners subsidiary Belk and Limited-branded merchandise is available on its website .