An Alabama mall owner is suing Forever 21 Inc., saying that it lost millions of dollars leasing space to the retailer based on misleading sales targets, Bloomberg News reported. Forever 21 is accused of misrepresenting sales projections for a store it opened in Allied Development of Alabama’s Eastern Shore shopping mall, promising yearly revenue of at least $6 million but delivering only about $1.6 million its first year in business, according to court documents filed Nov. 22. In 2017, Allied Development struck a deal with Forever 21 that allowed the apparel retailer to peg its rent payment to its monthly gross sales. The store would turn over 5 percent of its monthly sales, as well as a bonus of 1 percent of yearly sales in excess of $7 million, according to the agreement. But the retailer used false information to back up projections it gave as part of the deal, according to the filing. Forever 21 based the projections on sales at its nearby store in Mobile, Alabama, which it said had generated $6 million in 2017, Allied Development said in the court filings. That store generated only $2 million in gross sales during 2017, according to the court documents.
