Kasaks’ Pac Sun Post Permanent

NEW YORK – Sally Frame Kasaks, who’s served as interim chief executive officer of Pacific Sunwear of California since last October, has been appointed chairman and CEO of the firm.

Peter Starrett, lead director of the company’s board, said that Kasaks “has done an outstanding job as interim CEO over the last eight months, providing a clear direction to our company and energizing our associates.”

Kasaks has been a director of Pac Sun, based in Anaheim, Calif., since 1997. She stepped in as acting CEO last October after Seth Johnson, former chief operating officer of Abercrombie & Fitch, resigned following two stormy years on the job. Kasaks relinquished her post as lead director of Pac Sun at that time.

Kasaks, 62, has served as CEO of various specialty retail firms in her career. These include Ann Taylor, Abercrombie & Fitch and The Talbots.

“While I believe that we are headed down the right path, and we have demonstrated significant progress, much work still needs to be done,” Kasaks commented. “My recent role as interim CEO has given me even greater knowledge of the company, its management team and associates, and our retail concepts. I look forward to leveraging the company’s strengths as a leading specialty apparel company to deliver an excellent in-store experience for our customers and improve comparable store performance through increased productivity.”

Long a perennial generator of large monthly same-store sales, Pac Sun has stumbled in recent years. On Monday, the firm reported a $5.1 million loss coupled with a same-store sales decline of 5.1% for the first quarter. Pac Sun finished the quarter with a total of 1183 units, including 845 PacSun stores, 117 outlets, 212 Demo units and nine of its new One Thousand Steps shops.

As of May 5, the company had closed 14 of 74 Demo stores slated for closure. The other 60 are expected to close during the early part of the current second quarter.