Business Highlights

Federated to cut up to 6,200 jobs, rename Marshall Field's stores

CINCINNATI — Federated Department Stores Inc. said on Tuesday it is planning to cut up to 6,200 jobs beginning next year and change all 62 Marshall Field's stores to the Macy's name in the fall of 2006 in its biggest steps yet since completing its acquisition of May Department Stores Inc.

The operator of Bloomingdale's also said it will shed the Philadelphia-based bridal group division it acquired from May and is studying what to do with its Lord & Taylor division.

About 4,500 positions will be eliminated beginning in March as Federated phases out May's divisional operations in Boston, Houston, Arlington, Va., and Los Angeles. The remaining 1,700 cuts will be in St. Louis at May's corporate offices.

Federated had pledged not to cut any jobs before March 1 as part of its acquisition of its rival.

The moves are a logical extension of Federated's strategy, said Michael Appel, of Quest Turnaround Advisors, a turnaround management and advisory firm in Purchase, N.Y. "Macy's nameplate is going to take over, and they are streamlining the old divisional operations of the May company and putting them under the Macy's umbrella."

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Digital music: Dell Inc., the world's largest direct computer seller, on Tuesday launched a new flash-memory digital music player designed to compete with the iPod Shuffle.

Dell billed its DJ Ditty as a better value than the Shuffle. Both devices are $99 and come equipped with 512 megabytes of memory, but because the Ditty uses an audio format that compresses digital music files more efficiently, Dell asserts the Ditty can hold up to 220 songs while the same-sized Shuffle stores about 120.