"Performance has suffered at a number of retailers," Jaffe said."And the LBO premium has gone away. A lot of companies were talkedabout as a potential LBO target. With banks lending at a much lowerlevel of leverage, that has gone away."

Meanwhile, the company is continuing to expand Maurices, opening14 stores in the quarter. Plans call for opening 17 units in thesecond quarter and 39 in the spring for an 11% growth in net squarefootage. About 20 units will be relocated from malls to stripcenters. Dress Barn opened 17 of 20 fall stores, with 20 to closeat year-end. Plans call for 20 new store and seven closures in thespring.

Total net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2008 were $363.7million, up 1.5% from the same quarter last year. Same-store salesdeclined 3%. A net sales drop of 6% and 8% comp-store sales dropfor Dress Barn stores was offset by a 16.5% increase in Mauricestotal sales and 8% comp-store sales increase. Earnings for were$19.6 million, down from $27.4 million the previous year.