After suffering a 25 percent annual sales decline, J.C. Penney yesterday ousted CEO Ron Johnson and replaced him with his predecessor, Myron E. Ullman III, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Ullman faces several tough choices as he will have to decide whether to continue Johnson's strategy of turning the chain into a collection of boutiques or return to a more traditional department-store model. The Plano, Texas-based chain was so damaged under Johnson that Ullman will struggle to turn it around. On Feb. 27, J.C. Penney reported annual revenue dropped to $13 billion, the lowest since at least 1987. Johnson alienated the company's core customers by doing away with sales and promotions and only recently began trying to win them back by putting discounts front and center again.
