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GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Dollar General Corp. announced this month that it is eliminating about 225 positions at its corporate headquarters in a cost-cutting move. No store-level jobs were affected, the company said, and about 115 of the eliminated positions were already vacant.
Dollar General Corp. announced this month that it is eliminating about 225 positions at its corporate headquarters in a cost-cutting move. No store-level jobs were affected, the company said, and about 115 of the eliminated positions were already vacant.
The company employs 105,500 people, including more than 1,100 at its headquarters.
The restructuring of its corporate support was made effective immediately and was undertaken to improve efficiency and reduce expenses, the company said in a press release.
"Over the last several months, we have taken a hard look at our cost structure and are streamlining our support functions to improve our financial flexibility while positioning us to better serve our customers and to capitalize on long-term growth opportunities," remarked chief executive officer Todd Vasos. "This restructuring should allow us to continue strengthening our market leadership position and deliver long-term value for our shareholders."
Dollar General said it expects a third quarter pretax charge of about $7 million for the move. It also said it will implement a more rigorous budgeting process and continue looking for ways to control costs.
Vasos took over as CEO in June, succeeding Rick Dreiling, who had postponed his retirement while Dollar General waged an ultimately unsuccessful battle to acquire Family Dollar Stores, whose shareholders opted to take less money from Dollar Tree Inc. The Dollar Tree bid was deemed more likely to win approval from federal antitrust regulators. Dollar Tree was cleared by the Federal Trade Commission to acquire Family Dollar in July.
At the time of Vasos’s promotion from his job as chief operating officer, Dollar General issued fiscal 2015 guidance suggesting that executives were expecting strong growth, including an increase in total sales of between 8% and 9%, same-store sales growth of 3% to 3.5% and earnings-per-share growth of 10% to 13% over 2014 levels. The company was also forecasting that retail square footage would increase by about 7% this year and that it would open 730 new stores as it expanded its footprint in Rhode Island, Maine and Oregon.
Dollar General operates 12,198 stores in 43 states.
In August, Dollar General reported fiscal second quarter earnings of $282.3 million on revenue of $5.1 billion as both store traffic and transaction value increased from year-earlier levels. Net sales rose 7.9% in the period, the company noted, while same-store sales increased 2.8%.
