End of an Adventure

A few years ago, Eugene Ferkauf, the "duke of discounting" and founder of E. J. Korvette, Inc., discoursed about his career. "It's an adventure," said Ferkauf, whose chain came to include 45 department stores and 60 supermarkets, "and I'm going to stick with it and take it as far as it will go. Maybe some day it won't be an adventure, and if that happens--well, it hasn't happened." Last week Ferkauf apparently decided that it had. And as a result, he quit.

Just 17 months ago, to solve the problems of falling earnings and an uneven top management that was turning over faster than the merchandise, Ferkauf merged the company with Spartans Industries, a soft-goods manufacturing and sales chain run by Charles C. Bassine, a longtime friend. Bassine provided the strong management that was needed at Korvette's. Some stores were marked to be sold off, inventory controls were tightened, the company slowed its breathless expansion, even though it stuck to its plan to open a Korvette's in Manhattan's Herald Square, right between Macy's and Gimbels. In the most recent quarter on which Spartans has reported, sales fell slightly to $278,700,000, but earnings increased 33% to $4,159,000, with Korvette operations accounting for about half of the totals.

As a term of the merger, Bassine insisted on running the combined operation. Ferkauf, who has never cared about titles, accepted one as chairman of the executive committee; he spent most of his time supervising merchandising operations, the subject he knew and liked best. But working for someone else had none of the adventure of running his own stores. Last week, citing "personal reasons," Ferkauf, at 47, eased himself out of the operation, carrying with him Bassine's predictable expressions of regret.

Leaving Spartans, Ferkauf takes along no financial worries. The boy from Brooklyn's Samuel J. Tilden High School, who opened his first store in 1948 with $4,000 capital, is now worth around $20 million on the basis of Spartans stock, which he owns jointly with his wife, Estelle.

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