The Impatient Shoemaker

When a well-heeled Manhattanite who knows her high fashion goes shopping for footwear, she might choose between three of New York's fanciest shoe salons--I. Miller, Henri Bendel, and the Delman Salon at Bergdorf Goodman. What she probably does not know is that all three are operated by the same manufacturing and retailing giant--Genesco, Inc., of Nashville, Tenn.

Starting out as just one of the South's many shoemakers, Genesco has grown pell-mell since 1938 by buying up 46 companies. Today it operates 80 factories in 17 states, manufactures 51 brands of shoes from Flagg Bros, to Mannequin, makes Griffon men's clothes and Formfit girdles, and sells its wares through 1,500 Genesco-owned retail stores, including the Bonwit Teller chain. From its sprawling empire, Genesco last year drew profits of $8,900,000 on sales of $443 million.

A Purpose. Genesco was stitched together by Chairman Walton Maxey Jarman, 58, an introspective Baptist deacon whose favorite pastime is rereading the works of Thomas Mann. Impatient with the faults of others, Jarman also harbors a nagging concern that he may not understand himself, once took a battery of company psychological tests under an assumed name. The psychologists' verdict: Jarman was too shy and self-conscious ever to deal successfully with people, and would be a failure in management.

Through much of his business life, Jarman has moved with a single-minded purpose--to build a company that could clothe men, women and children from head to toe. and become the General Motors of the apparel industry.

He went to M.I.T. determined to become an electrical engineer, but quit after his junior year to join a men's shoe company that his father had launched. By 1932 he was president of the company, and shortly afterward began branching out into women's and children's shoes. When shoe manufacturing failed to share in the boom of the 1950s, he started looking for more promising enterprises, moved into lingerie, sleepwear, knitwear and retailing.

Basic to Jarman's plan was integration of the new companies to provide the economies of size and to put him in closer touch with changing consumer tastes. Today Genesco relies heavily on its retail outlets to alert its manufacturing divisions to new buying trends. The company's divisions also keep in close touch, and a successful new shoe design by the high-priced Johnston & Murphy line can be quickly copied by Genesco's lower-priced lines. Nonetheless. Jarman insists that each division retain its own distinctive personality, and that division managers have wide autonomy. Says one Wrall Streeter: "Genesco gives a lot of leeway to the divisions, and Maxey runs around ready to throw the book at them if they don't perform." Echoes a Genesco vice president: "He gives you enough rope not only to hang yourself but everyone else as well."

And Still Poised. Despite its rapid growth, Genesco is a long way from Maxey Jarman's goal. It still does not make women's or children's coats, suits and dresses. Moreover, though total profits have increased 69% since 1955, per-share earnings have tailed off from $2.31 to $2.14--partly because Genesco issued new stock to acquire many of its subsidiaries. Genesco is currently lumping three of its retail men's-apparel chains into one overhead-cutting group, and Jarman predicts that per-share earnings will be up 50% to 75% within seven years. He insists that he plans to hold down on new acquisitions for a while, but in the next breath admits that he would like to make a deal with a good manufacturer of work and play clothes. At Genesco's annual meeting next month he will ask his stockholders to approve a plan to double the company's authorized common shares to 10 million, and to issue 300,000 new shares of convertible preferred--a move that, among other things, will give Maxey Jarman a lot more stock with which to swing still more acquisitions.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.