Liberty House to close
two Guam stores,
distributor

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Liberty House will close two of its three retail stores on Guam and its distribution center there, concentrating all its Guam efforts on the chain's main store in the Micronesia Mall.

The operations, which will be phased out over the next few weeks, employ 42 workers but all of them will be offered positions at the remaining store, said John Monahan, Liberty House president, in a statement.

The 15,000-square-foot Tumon Bay resort store is being closed because Liberty House, working its way through a bankruptcy reorganization, is concentrating on its core business of department stores, Monahan said.

The 7,500-square-foot Penthouse outlet at Compadres mall is closing because of Liberty House's decision to stop buying special merchandise for the discount-price Penthouse stores, he said. The Penthouse concept was to provide a place for clearance sales of Liberty House lines that weren't selling well in the main stores, but the chain later moved away from that and brought in items just to sell at Penthouse.

Liberty House no longer wants to do that and there won't be enough clearance merchandise from the one Guam store to keep Penthouse operating there, Monahan said.

Left with one Guam store, the 81,000-square-foot Liberty House department store in Micronesia Mall, the company no longer needs its Guam distribution center, so goods will be received in Hawaii and shipped direct to Micronesia Mall, he said.

Liberty House filed for bankruptcy reorganization in March. After the Guam closures, the chain will have closed 18 stores -- mostly specialty shops -- and be left with 10 full-range Liberty House stores and 12 resort shops in Hawaii, plus the remaining Guam store.