You may not be familiar with the name 'Ascena Retail', but you will know the brands they represent. They're the umbrella company who are ultimately responsible for Ann Taylor, LOFT, Dress Barn and Lou & Grey, among others. When things are going well, owning several major firms is an excellent position to be in. When one of those brands starts to struggle it can drag on the finances of the others, and before you know it there's a major issue. In this case, Dress Barn is the bad apple, with 25% of all its stores due to close during 2019.
Ascena received $1.7bn in sales revenue during 2017 which sounds like a lot but actually represents a drop compared to the previous year, which was a drop from the year before that. The trend is downward, and action obviously has to be taken. It's expected that closing down the ineffective Dress Barn stores will steady the ship, so here's hoping.