The Acorn stores, which Kalamazoo, MI-based Gilmore BrothersInc. sold to CBK for about $7 million, join the retailer's twoother brands, 463 Christopher & Banks stores, and 150 C.J.Banks stores. Acorn caters primarily to middle-aged women at bothmall and non-mall locations, typically offering clothes at higherprice points than the other two stores, more directly competingwith Talbots or Chico's.

Regarding the acquisition, Credit Suisse First Boston analystsRichard N. Baum and Tracy Kogan write, "We reiterate our Outperformrating. Serving the attractive mature woman demographic segmentlargely underserved by specialty stores, Acorn is a good fit forCBK and provides the company with a potential future leg of growth,beyond Christopher & Banks and CJ Banks."

By contrast, Robin Murchison, an analyst with Jefferies &Co., tells GSR that she would prefer that CBK gets its base ontrack before it makes acquisitions. "Management has made somechanges to the merchandise mix since late last year, but apparentlynot enough to boost same store sales this year, at a time whenfashion sales have been extremely strong," she says.