J.C. Penney Loses a Key Finance Executive

(Bloomberg) -- J.C. Penney Co.’s management ranks are bracing for another change.

Trent Kruse, senior vice president of finance at the beleaguered retailer, will be exiting the company effective June 14 to pursue other opportunities, according to people familiar with the matter.

Kruse, who oversaw investor relations, treasury and credit in his latest post, joined the Plano, Texas-based company in 2005. As part of his role, Kruse would host quarterly earnings conference calls, answering analysts’ questions about the department-store chain’s financials.

Kruse did not respond to LinkedIn messages requesting comment. Phone calls and emails to the company requesting comment were not returned.

J.C. Penney has had a revolving door of executive hires and departures in recent quarters. Chief Executive Officer Jill Soltau stepped into the top role in October after Marvin Ellison left to lead Lowe’s Cos. Soltau has made multiple new hires in senior management, including executives from Macy’s Inc., Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. Last month, Shawn Gensch was brought on as chief customer officer, charged with the task of drawing more shoppers into its more than 800 stores.

The department-store chain is in a midst of a turnaround plan -- including store closures -- as falling sales keep investors anxious. The company’s shares are down 4.6% this year, even as the S&P 500 is up about 15%.

The cost to protect J.C. Penney debt against default for one year jumped as much as 1 percentage point to about 29 points upfront, according to data provider CMA. That means it now costs about $2.9 million to insure $10 million of debt for a year.

--With assistance from Claire Boston.

To contact the reporters on this story: Katherine Doherty in New York at kdoherty23@bloomberg.net;Jordyn Holman in New York at jholman19@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anne Riley Moffat at ariley17@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder

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