Hundreds of Gap, Family Dollar, Victoria’s Secret stores to close

Around 230 Gap stores and 53 Victoria’s Secret stores will be closing, their respective parent companies have said. Dollar Tree, which owns the Family Dollar chain, also plans to close up to 390 stores and convert another 200 Family Dollar stores into Dollar Tree shops, the Wall Street Journal reported. (Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar for around $9 billion in 2015.) As for Gap, it plans to split off its Old Navy brand into a separate company, as the chain’s “business model and customers have increasingly diverged from our specialty brands over time,” said a statement from board chairman Robert Fisher. Old Navy has been doing better than its sister companies, Gap and Banana Republic, according to USA Today. Meanwhile, Victoria’s Secret, a flagship of retail giant L Brands, has experienced a drop in sales amid an increased desire among shoppers for so-called “comfort lingerie,” according to CNBC. [TRD]