Boscov family member named chain's vice president

In a move that paves the way for a successor to its octogenarian chairman, the Boscov's department-store chain announced Wednesday that a member of the founding family, Jim Boscov, had been named vice chairman of the Reading company.

The move came about a year and a half after Boscov, 61, rejoined the company following its emergence from a swift Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization orchestrated by chairman Albert Boscov, his 81-year-old uncle.

It underscores the family's intention to stay in business, squelching any notion that the company might one day soon be sold to outsiders.

"We're gratified that Boscov's will remain a family business," Albert Boscov said in a statement announcing his nephew's promotion. "With Jim's retail experience, intelligence, and people skills, he was a natural choice.

"While I have no plans to retire, I want to assure our coworkers and business partners that Boscov's will remain Boscov's for many years to come."

Jim Boscov, a Reading native whose retailing background includes stints at the family company and elsewhere, was running his own business when he agreed to work alongside his uncle, architect of the chain's against-all-odds rescue in the depths of the recession.

"I couldn't be happier," he said in an interview about his appointment. "Albert is energetic. At 61, my biggest problem is keeping up with him."

Jim Boscov rejoined the company in August 2009, just months after his uncle - collecting millions of dollars from relatives, associates, and lenders and loan guarantees from Pennsylvania and New Jersey municipalities - repurchased the bankrupt chain of 39 stores, which anchor many of the Philadelphia region's shopping malls.

His late father, Joseph, was Albert Boscov's older brother. Their father, Solomon, a once-penniless Russian immigrant, founded the first store at the turn of the 20th century in Reading.

Albert Boscov is credited with turning his father's department store into the regional chain during decades of stewardship that ended when he retired in 2006.

Joseph Boscov founded Berk-Tek, a cable and wire manufacturer with facilities in New Holland. That company is now part of a global enterprise headquartered in Europe.

"I was very fortunate to be exposed to both of them as mentors," Jim Boscov said.

While in his 20s in 1975, he began a 15-year stretch at Boscov's, working his way through departments and positions, including store manager, before leaving for Massachusetts to launch a women's apparel business called Cambridge Dry Goods. He and a partner sold it to an investor eight years later, he said.

He then started a buying group for the outlet-retail industry called the Buyers' Edge, which is still in business.

In August 2008, Boscov's declared bankruptcy, suffocating under debt brought on, in part, by a costly store-expansion strategy and a recapitalization loan to replenish Albert Boscov's retirement payout.

Since the family repurchased it before Christmas 2008, the new company has been doing well, Jim Boscov said. Albert Boscov has run it ever since.

The company is meeting its obligations on $35 million in loans guaranteed by several Pennsylvania municipalities where its stores are, said Ed Geiger, acting deputy secretary of the state Department of Community and Economic Development.

"Absolutely, they are current on their payments," Geiger said Wednesday.

Those loans were considered crucial final puzzle pieces in the family's efforts to assemble enough cash to repurchase the company in bankruptcy.