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Forman Mills founder explains why he sold out after 31 years

The radio ads still blare out FORR-MANN-MILLS, but the Forman who started his 36-store low-priced apparel business in 1985 has sold the company and stepped aside.

Richard "Rick" Forman is founder and chairman of the Pennsauken-based Forman Mills with 3,000 employees.
Richard "Rick" Forman is founder and chairman of the Pennsauken-based Forman Mills with 3,000 employees.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

The radio ads still blare out FORR-MANN-MILLS, but the Forman who started his 36-store low-priced apparel business in 1985 has sold the company and stepped aside.

"My biggest nightmare was being out of the business and hearing my advertising," said Richard "Rick" Forman, 56, founder and chairman of the Pennsauken-based company, which has 3,000 employees. "The other night I was listening to WIP and heard the ad. It's weird hearing the advertisement and realizing I'm not at the company."

The new owner is Goode Partners L.L.C., a New York investment group whose investments have included Villa clothing stores (the Philly-based former Sneaker Villa), La Colombe coffee shops, and Skullcandy earphones (it sold both last year), among other brands.

How much did Goode pay for Forman Mills? "I'm not going to disclose that," Forman said. "I'm satisfied in that respect. I'm not worried about the financials."

Forman Mills' new executive chairman and interim CEO is veteran retailer Allen Weinstein, who also would not comment on the price. Weinstein is also executive chairman at Villa and a board member of the South Jersey-based Destination Maternity.

Goode partner David Oddi said in a statement that Goode plans to keep opening Forman stores in new markets "and invest in the company's infrastructure," including "an upgraded point-of-sale system."

Forman will serve as a consultant. Weinstein will be assisted by Michael Moore, a former CFO of Bloomingdale's, Cato Corp., Advance Auto Parts, and Ruby Tuesday; and Dennis Tompkins, also a Cato veteran.

After quietly closing the deal Oct. 4, Forman said, he distributed bonuses to every full-time employee who had worked at the company for more than two years, with some bonuses topping $20,000.

"I'm still in withdrawal," Forman said, adding that he cleaned out one of his offices on Saturday.

Forman said the sale was not forced. He said he and the privately held company he started with an $80 loan from his father were in good health. "We've never had an unprofitable year. I guess it takes some guts to quit while you are ahead," he added.

Goode Partners "was after me for a long time. We had a couple deals that broke apart," but "I was always changing my mind, waking up in the middle of the night," Forman said. "Even in this deal, every day until the very end, people thought I was going to back out."

In 2014, Forman recorded a segment of the television program Undercover Boss. Pretending to be a new management trainee, he found himself frustrated by his company's cash register system. The system was so slow that if he were a customer, he would walk out, he said.

The new owners "can do better, putting in new systems," Forman said. "I'm more of a builder of a company, like an entrepreneur."

That experience also led Forman to realize that his position increasingly and unpleasantly led him to be out of touch with his rank-and-file staff.

He found himself humbled by the hard work of people he barely knew. "I need to spend more time with the people in the trenches," he said then.

"You have to be a lot more impersonal to run a 3,000-person company," he said Monday, lamenting that he just cannot call random employees up and talk about their work.

Forman started his business selling T-shirts at a flea market in an empty lot on Frankford Avenue.

"Maybe I'll go back to flea markets," he said. "I won't have the pressure."

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