Who Owns Macy's?

Rowland Hussey Macy opened R.H. Macy & Co. on Sixth Avenue near 14th Street in Manhattan in 1858, a fancy dry goods store that applied innovations including cash-only sales, fixed pricing, and newspaper advertising that made it an immediate success.

Macy's moved to Herald Square at 34th Street in 1902, building what became the largest department store in the world for much of the twentieth century. The Herald Square flagship remains the company's most famous location and the site of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, launched in 1924 and now among the most-watched annual television broadcasts in America.

The store expanded nationally through acquisition and growth, becoming a public company and then the anchor of Federated Department Stores after Federated acquired it in 1994 out of Macy's bankruptcy.

The 2005 Federated acquisition of May Department Stores brought brands including Marshall Field's, Lazarus, and Filene's under common ownership. In a controversial consolidation, Macy's, Inc. rebranded nearly all regional banners to Macy's in 2006, creating a national chain of over 800 stores at its peak.

The e-commerce era pressured department stores broadly. Macy's closed hundreds of stores through the 2010s and 2020s, invested in macys.com, launched the Macy's Backstage off-price concept inside stores (2015), and added small-format locations.

Under the Bold New Chapter strategy launched in 2024, Macy's is closing roughly 150 underperforming stores through 2026 while investing in 350 go-forward locations, including the upgraded Reimagine 125 group. As of fiscal year-end January 2026, Macy's operated approximately 432 store locations.