Dayton Daily News

Family business to expand nationwide

Alexander family plans 40 new boutique stores in next two years.

- By Holly Shively Staff Writer

A locally-founded retail business plans to quadruple its number of stores in the next two years as it expands across the country.

Rose & Remington, founded in Warren County’s Lebanon by mother-daughter pair Dee Alexander and Kristen Ponchot, is expecting to take its current nine stores to 40 within the next two years. The boutique has made confidenti­al partners that are dedicated to opening stores on a national scale, said Nathan Alexander, one of the company’s owners, son of Dee Alexander and brother of Ponchot.

“We’ve doubled each year since we’ve been in business, we’ve got over 100 employees, and we hope to be at 40 stores in the next two years,” Alexander said.

The company, named after Ponchat’s twin daughters, is currently working on opening 10 new stores. It’s newest store in Colerain in Hamilton County opened in at the end of November and a new store at the Mall at Fairfield Commons will open late this spring near the mall’s main entrance across from an upcoming Forever 21 store.

The family just signed three leases in Indiana and working on several others that can’t be announced yet as it plans to stretch north to Columbus and south into Kentucky in the initial phases of expansion. After regional growth, it will focus on the rest of the country, Alexander said.

Property managers like Simon Property Group and Washington Prime Group, which owns the Dayton Mall and Fairfield Commons, are committing to finding new locations for the stores.

“They’ve got a national footprint that they can help us grow and we’ve kind of worked agreements with them to grow steadily but be conservati­ve to make sure that we’re staying true to our roots and making sure we’re opening each store appropriat­ely,” he said.

Rose and Remington will consider all destinatio­n locations and is planning to buy certain real estate as it expands. Alexander and Ponchat’s father has been in the real estate business in Warren County, sparking an entreprene­urial spirit in the rest of his family.

“They’ve always talked about business over the table as young kids and just very entreprene­urial and progressiv­e... the best gift they could give is the gift of knowl-

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (CMG)

This is a comeback story with investors betting that Brian Niccol, the former head of Taco Bell who took over as Chipotle’s chief executive last spring, can turn around the Newport Beach-based burrito chain.

Chipotle expanded quickly to 2,450 stores with its emphasis on fresh ingredient­s and fast service but went into a tailspin after highly publicized outbreaks of E. coli and other food-borne illnesses in late 2015.

After hitting a record high in mid-2015, the stock plummeted 67 percent until Niccol was hired, when it jumped 15 percent that day on hopes he could restore Chipotle’s sales growth and reputation among consumers.

So far it’s working, thanks partly to new menu items and a marketing blitz. Chipotle’s same-store sales in last year’s third quarter - those of stores open at least one year - jumped 4.4 percent from a year earlier.

The stock is up 22 percent so far this year and has soared 73 percent in the last 12 months, one of the biggest percentage gains of any stock in the S&P 500.

Ulta Beauty Inc. (ULTA) Never mind that Ulta competes in a crowded sector that includes the likes of Sephora, Lush and _ for the value minded _ every corner drugstore. Ulta’s more than 1,100 stores _ which offer an array of cosmetics, fragrances, skin-care products and salon services _ are enjoying strong results.

The Bolingbroo­k, Ill., company’s sales more than doubled to $5.9 billion in 2017 from $2.7 billion in 2013, and analysts estimate they will have climbed to $6.7 billion for 2018 when Ulta reports its results Wednesday.

In addition, although Ulta’s online sales make up only 10 percent of its total sales, its e-commerce business soared 65 percent in 2017 and jumped an additional 43 percent in the first nine months of last year.

Ulta also enjoys a strong customer-rewards program, with sales from members of its loyalty program accounting for more than 90 percent of its overall revenue.

The result: Ulta’s stock has gained 20 percent so far this year and is up 34.5 percent for the last 12 months.

Netflix Inc. (NFLX)

One of the famed FANG stocks (Facebook Inc., Amazon Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. are the others), Netflix is bouncing back from a drubbing in the second half of 2018, when the highflying technology sector led the overall market sharply lower.

Netflix is back up 33 percent so far this year and shows a gain of nearly 34 percent for the last 12 months, but recently it’s been volatile again as Netflix and rival streaming service Hulu announced price adjustment­s.

After Netflix said it was raising prices in U.S. markets by 13 percent to 18 percent, Hulu raised prices for some services.

But Hulu also cut the price for its base, ad-supported subscripti­on to $5.99 a month from $7.99 a month, raising fears that the move might draw business away from Netflix. Wall Street also frets about Netflix’s continued growth rates and the company’s $8 billion in longterm debt.

But Netflix’s paid membership­s climbed 26 percent to 139.3 million in the fourth quarter, well above analysts’ estimates, and the company forecast they would keep rising to 148.2 million in this year’s first quarter.

The Los Gatos, Calif., company has been investing billions of dollars in original programs to attract viewers and compete with a growing roster of streaming competitor­s besides Hulu, including Amazon and Walt Disney Co., which will launch its own streaming service later this year.

Twitter Inc. (TWTR)

The character of its content remains controvers­ial, and that, along with concern about Twitter’s user growth, keeps its stock volatile. A graph of Twitter’s price over the last two years resembles a roller-coaster ride.

The social media company’s stock is up nearly 20 percent this year. It’s also gained 36 percent in the last 12 months, but that’s mainly because the stock zoomed from $22 to nearly $46 in the first half of last year before plunging about 36 percent in the second half. It closed Tuesday at $34.37 a share.

The stocked dropped 4 percent on Jan. 23 alone after a pair of interviews with Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey were published online in which Dorsey alluded to the difficulty of fixing the abuse, harassment and extremist views often found on Twitter.

Financiall­y, Twitter has impressed of late. When it reported its most recent quarterly results, in October, the San Francisco company posted earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ estimates.

Twitter also said that although its number of monthly active users fell by 9 million from the prior quarter to 326 million, partly because Twitter purged fake or abusive accounts, the company saw a major jump in revenue from advertisin­g to its remaining user base. Twitter is scheduled to release its full-year results Thursday.

Keysight Technologi­es Inc. (KEYS)

This Santa Rosa, Calif., company makes sophistica­ted electronic­s test and measuremen­t equipment for the communicat­ions, automotive and aerospace industries, among others. That’s hardly glamorous stuff, but Keysight’s investors probably don’t mind.

The company’s stock is rallying again this year after soaring for most of 2018 until the stock pulled back with the rest of the market in the fourth quarter. Keysight has jumped nearly 22 percent this year and has soared nearly 68 percent over the last 12 months.

Keysight’s products are used in a variety of emerging technologi­es, including 5G mobile communicat­ions and the newest batteries for electric vehicles.

The company also has made several acquisitio­ns to expand its customer base.

In its fiscal year that ended Oct. 31, Keysight’s revenue rose 22 percent from a year earlier to $3.9 billion.

 ?? CONTRIBUTE­D ?? Dee Alexander and her children, Nate Alexander and Kristen Ponchot, all of Lebanon, own the Rose and Remington chain that is rapidly expanding and plans to take the chain across the nation.
CONTRIBUTE­D Dee Alexander and her children, Nate Alexander and Kristen Ponchot, all of Lebanon, own the Rose and Remington chain that is rapidly expanding and plans to take the chain across the nation.

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