Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 11, 1978, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press business finance March 1978 wart for your office party or 200store network rides on coattails of giants girl voted least Likely to succeed Heads Chain Clare president of Little and weve always done Well in the smaller but we also real ize times Are and weve got to change with by Paul Sullivan March 8 was International women so it was an Ideal Day for an interview with Clare still the Only woman in the country to head a but it was just a and the significance of the Day was ignored by the general Man Ager and majority shareholder of Little and the Winni Peg based department store in who was named one of Canadas top 100 women of All time in is no ardent if she avoids emphasizing her and will concede to talk about it Only if its always made me a Little Dis gusted to be treated like a second class Ive never considered the and Haven allowed it to but if you run around bothering and worrying about it it puts you in that quiet Pride she prefers to let the facts speak for which they pronouncing 15 years of steady growth and expansion under her although the 103rd annual report wont be out until next Leckie revealed her company sold million Worth of merchandise in a fact she states with quiet when she look Over the firm upon the death of her husband in Little and was turning Over Only million and showing the effects of its full 87 Adam Leckie had just about Dou bled sales from the time he took Over in but the revamping process had really just begun when Clare took she remembers that breaking into the business with hardly any experience was but not necessarily More difficult because she was a when you get Down to a Man in the same situation would have i know i certainly had but i stood up and you dont think you Are being and you dont Wear your feelings on your she was Able to stand the pressure because she Felt the payoff was tre i was certainly left in but i had the tools to work with to build nobody Ever hands you anything on a Silver Platter and if they you have to fight to hang on to pressed she expanded on her thoughts about women in the work double role i guess i dont think women have the same Opportunity As and its mostly because of the role they have to play in the it has to be be a double role if she wants to be successful in and in Evita the family comes she pointed out that women used to feel guilty about going to work at thank goodness were getting Over that and some women Are finding they can still maintain both roles and but not social Are ultimately going to finish the she individual initiative will account for some of but families Are find ing they cant maintain the Standard of living they now enjoy if there Arent two people what about the argument which states that More women entering the work Force Are making jobs scarce for the legitimate i dont believe its a Bunch of she sums up her feelings with a practical lesson in applied women Are a lot better than men on the Small details of and because there so Good at they often get left with that kind of unwilling to get left with any the schoolteacher from Saskatchewan became Canadas Only female chief executive to avoid the girl voted least Likely to succeed in High school has gone on to build one of the most solid contend ers to the Junior department store Hierarchy clothing and but no major appliances a Chain of about 200 stores and when Kresge and Woolworth moved up from the Square foot and into the big new Kmart and woolco we tried to fill the Niche by moving up to the foot size she when we come into a town for the first we like to ride in on the coattails of one of the big department establish a store and we wont be far or Well go into a shopping Centre with Fown thing9 we literally do ride in on their but were different enough that i think weve proven we can compete with the big we do our own and it proves to be popular with the 200odd stores Are stretched across Western Canada from the coast of to the at there arc no plans to expand beyond the where Robinson stores have become an institution much the Way the old five and dime was such an integral part of Rural Leckie pays homage to the company country weve Al ways done Well in the smaller but we also realize times Are and weve got to change with she says farm people Are More Mobile these and can journey to larger centres to Stock Robin Little has followed them when it gets the Ideal place to locate a store is in a temperature controlled shopping with our its the Only i dont think youll Ever get me to go in another strip she referring shopping Centre plans employing rows of shops with out a common indoor they All have separate and one must go outside to get if its which it usually is on the Prairies in the people stay away from the strip Centre in she said there is plenty of Opportunity for Little to go the enclosed mall because eve lovers have saturated the cities and arc looking for new markets to con the obvious solution is to pro vide smaller centres with enclosed the company 103year experience in Western Canada gives it a profound knowledge of the Good and the bad towns from a retail Point of the company surveys a town extensively before it commits itself to setting we make of but not too says the mistake is often not so much the Choice of the town but the wrong part of or even the wrong part of the shopping Happy Here at the firm is Happy where it in serving Western Little Only recently received a proposal for an expansion to Kirkland which would be a Halfway leap across the Canadian but turned it Leckie says the company continues to concentrate on upgrading present stores and Mer Chandise before expanding National although she Doest Rule out the possibility some time in the fun the clothes featured on Little shelves come from two Winnipeg for outerwear jeans and and on Tario and Quebec for fashion items from lingerie and Al i cant say that As exclusively As i once because Winnipeg garment Industry is beginning to establish itself in the fashion clothes from Down East come in on Pool which Are shared by most clothing retailers in the City As a cos cutting imports Are subject to quotas Are set at the level of imports to the country in a move taken to protect the Domestic garment Industry from the Low Cost because its a it is dependent upon other Independent import ers so the Issue is out of its hands Leckie concedes the import quota policy has Hurt lit Les competitive especially with the big department stores that do their own direct but we emphasize better Quality Mer Chandise and better service As a Little has two stores opening next both in both Square feet another store is opening soon near abbots a Square foot retail feels growth Leckie says she can feel things growing when she goes out to but maintains its not he Only province in Canada which is going to grow in the Long i have tremendous Faith in Cana those people who say the country Hast got a Chance just Haven lived Long those new stores will offer 000 lines of merchandise cloth and will join a mixture of company owned and dealer franchise the store is the largest dealer store Ever built by Al though company stores Are As Large As when Adam Leckie took Over the business in 1957 it was an Odd mix Ture of wholesale and retail enter there were some 50 Many of whom had been with the company for Many As they went out of the company didst replace opting instead to build company the focus is exclusively and com Pany stores outnumber dealers in a ratio of 60 to Robinson has strength ened its dealer All three new for Are dealer store Leckie said head office charges no franchise the Only thing we take from the dealer is 100 per cent and that no Idle the dealer is expected to run As a company operation in every his Stock and merchandise All come from the Cen trial we give him what we Call a turn key we set up the store for fill it with our and he takes it from Hes supposed to run it like a company we make of profit of the Mer Chandise we sell the we provide him with a larger margin than he used to mainly because he needs a larger margin to oper she everything is kept track of on a Central computer which is a singular example of How extensively the world has come to depend on the computer to handle its the company computer not Only controls the but sorts out Doles out a and does the daily it Marks changes in and lists balances the does the annual inventory in no keeps track of Purchase Al and carries out the sales for a retail is Akin to a pulse sales analysis charts what items Are How fast and even what time of the with virtually All the important functions wrapped up in the company its no sur Pise that the first thing on Leckis shopping list when she can afford it is a new it wont do anything but it will do More and do it place in Sun capital expenditure has been an important part of the Little so while the share holders usually get a its perhaps not As Large As it could As Madame president feels the capital health of the firm conies but one Well have our place in the she the company reported net earnings of in the first nine months on compared with in the same period beside the another major upcoming capital expenditure will be be an expanded warehouse Here in Leckie says Little now has feet of warehousing space outside their main Complex on Sherwin Road out by the International and the situation is not profitable apart from if we can improve our Well be doing pretty Leckie has no thoughts of retiring in not old enough but has a Strong enough sense of irony to know How difficult passage can Ever since Ive been in the com Treyve All worried about the problem of my i guess there trying to soften the but i take heart in the Story about Henry vhf last wife she was a Good and she outlived in a woman and i expect to live a Long comment Quebec Job losses the National Cost to foot Bill rising by John Meyer some by the governments own were lost in Quebec manufacturing industries last jobs were lost in Ontario manufacturing industries too but with a the jobs lost in Ontario have a Good Chance of being those lost in Quebec have one reason is that much of Quebec manufacturing leather footwear is labor intensive and vulnerable to Low wage Competition from that labor insensitivity is also a reason Why Quebec As measured in terms of production per is 92 per cent of the National 84 per cent of the jobs lost in manufacturing in Ontario will be at least for the most As demand those lost in in the labor intensive wont be recovered until either labor costs Are reduced or productivity is neither is Likely to Quebec wages Are being pushed up by an indexed minimum wage which is the highest in North the investment needed to make existing producers More productive is discouraged by political uncertainty just possibly More by the socialistic Bent of the Quebec cant Hope to in these the economic Sel Suffi Cliency projected for it by the parti Quebe Cois and still retain a Standard of living within reaching distance of its present it Doest have the Industrial base for what is More to the Point is that the rest of Canada has begun to realize As the full extent of the economic losses being incurred by the parti quebecois become taxpayers in the have provinces Are beginning to ask How much longer they should be expected to underwrite those the question is particularly pertinent in Ontario where the minimum wage is it is not As if Quebec were at the same geographical disadvantage As the Atlantic provinces where unemployment is higher and productivity is Quebec has had the natural a proximity to Market in Montreal at a closely integrated financial Success Ive governments have in the years since the quiet revolution got realized anything like the economic potential these advantages quite the the Forest for was overbuilt which is one of the reasons Why its in trouble in this the Federal government has been equally at fault in its willingness to subsidize marginal the Industry now is overpriced in its the result of escalating labor and other costs tacitly encouraged by during those years before the parti quebecois came to and there have been opportunities to phase out the less competitive and More vulnerable industries in favor of More competitive and More sophisticated Steps were taken in that Quebec was the product Ion base for sophisticated electronic sys tems of satellite development of Ria and Long distance transmission sys tems of Northern but where is that expertise now much of it has shifted out of the province in response to the continuing failure of Quebec governments to recognize and accept the requirements for its future the head offices located in Montreal and their requirements for services and supplies constituted an Industry All by no Point to dwelling further on what is happening to it much of this dreary record can be blamed on preceding Quebec govern what is pertinent now is that the parti quebecois can be from outside the As doing Little to Correct the provinces economic weak Nesses and much that worsens the question is begged of for How much longer those outside Quebec must be prepared to take up the they can Point has already achieved economic separation in the extent to which its Economy has been broken out of the mainstream of the North american at a time when the pendulum is swinging Back towards an intensified cultivation of the private Sec Quebec is moving with increasing delamination in the opposite so let it go its own More no que Beers Are just dont ask us to foot he Gold Copper Down bad Omen for stocks by Eliot Janeway new York Gold Price moves arc always symptoms of far reaching change in the financial Copper Price moves Flash just As reliable signals of trendsetting change in the but any time a Price move in the precious Metal is confirmed by a simulate Nous counter move in the base its time to sound the take the hypothetical Case of a stall or even a break in Gold and a simultaneous surge in Copper the Market place would take the weakness in Gold As evidence of a High level of confidante in the Dollar As the worlds and the surge in Copper As a signal of rising income for beginning with the cyclical industries that Start looking backward Over the Span of a this hypothetical Case has been the familiar with one in the Price of Gold broke out of its 40year freeze at an ounce by 1973 it had surged More than which had been Trad ing Between 45 cents and 80 also took off it reached the untenable Peak of on april fools this exception to the Rule of weak Gold and Strong Copper proved but it was not this the movements of the Gold and Copper markets reverted to the Standard Rule of the Gold mar Ket went strengthening As it at the same the Copper Market went weakening As it apparent in both markets was the striking phenomenon on momentum accelerating with Price a Price trend will unfold in a saw toothed pattern if the trend is rises will be punctuated with corrective and vice but this Gebru Arys Gold move headed straight in Stead of running Ito Selling pressure stirred up by profit it attracted More buyers As it in the same the push to liquidate Copper inventories hardened As the Price slipped but the Selloff failed to attract bargain the spectacle of Copper Selling below and buyers into using up inventories without replacing them Specula were closing out their the Copper digging in to hold their fragmented Price were Frank to admit that demand left a Good Deal to be they were also Frank to explain that they saw no reason to Cut the Price at which they we rent moving Metal any further we might As Well sit tight at c3 cents waiting for demand to pick As get caught offering it at 61 cents and still finding no a variety of pressures and incentives hit the Copper reveal ing How uncontrollable it is How its moves reflect Market conditions As faithfully As Gold in a matter of a split developed Between the producers posted Price and the world Market quota All the Way from 63 cents to 53 split prices for Copper Are scarcely a but a spread of More than 10 cents a Pound from the top quote to the Bottom any spread starts a Tugo War Between stubborn Sellers and anxious the anxious Copper Sellers Are Hurt ing the the stubborn ones seem unable to hold the As matters the meaning of the Takeoff in the Gold Market is painfully the monies having lost Confidence in the ability of the american government to do anything about Infra is also losing major users of Copper Are cutting not stepping up their inside the United states the utilities Are suspend ing or actually cancelling projects right and the 1978 Auto year is off to a disturbingly slow the inflation of single family Home Market while pricing properties out of the reach of average has not enabled builders to recover outside the United the engines of recovery Are run Ning Down even whats Good for and bad for cop does not add up to Rosy prospects for Bonds or ;