An Atlantan who helped sell Moe’s Southwest Grill to a venture capital firm has a new challenge: refocusing Ritz & Wolf Camera & Image.
The struggling camera chain is trying to survive the double whammy of print-at-home technologies and the shuttering of 500 stores during a bankruptcy reorganization.
The Beltsville, Md.-based company’s survival will depend in part on whether Stephen LaMastra, its new president, can fashion a strategy to make customers use Ritz & Wolf as their one-stop store for anything involving digital images.
He wants stores to be a place where they can buy cameras, laptops and televisions -- in other words, devices that take or display images -- then return to purchase mugs, photo books and key chains with those images plastered on them.
“It’s such a fundamentally different company than consumers even realize,” LaMastra said during an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the Piedmont Road store. “This is an imaging store, not a camera store. And imaging is dramatically different than it was just a few years ago.”
LaMastra, 44, has experience with Ritz & Wolf, having worked there for 10 years. Since 2005, he had worked for Atlanta-based Raving Brands, where he helped sell the Moe’s Southwest Grill concept to its current owner, Roark Capital Group in Atlanta.
LaMastra has brought three other Atlantans with him to lead Ritz & Wolf: Tom Herman, the chief financial officer formerly with Raving Brands; Chris Allen, the real estate chief formerly with Raving Brands; and Jeff Israel, the general counsel formerly with Home Depot.
Neal K. Aronson, founder and managing partner of Roark Capital, said Moe’s “improved materially” under LaMastra’s guidance.
“I think he did a very good job for us,” Aronson said, adding he thinks LaMastra has the leadership skills and personality to improve an ailing company.
After a bankruptcy, it’s important to have a person like LaMastra to boost employee morale, Aronson said. “An upbeat attitude is helpful in any business, especially one that has had struggles.”
At the Ritz & Wolf store on Piedmont Avenue Monday, LaMastra knew associates by name and made sure to say goodbye to all of them before he left.
LaMastra started working at Wolf Camera in 1995, when the Atlanta-based company’s founder, Chuck Wolf, starred in television ads and photo processing of film was still a huge business. Wolf Camera filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and was bought by Ritz Camera, run by David Ritz, a cousin of Chuck Wolf’s.
The combined chain had 1,100 locations then but the number had dwindled to 800 when it filed for bankruptcy last February.
Ritz & Wolf Camera & Image was created last year by investors who purchased the assets of Ritz Camera Centers out of bankruptcy. One investor is David Ritz, who is chairman and CEO of the new entity. But it’s LaMastra, a one-time finance attorney at Atlanta firm Alston & Bird, who is tasked with operating the chain and bringing it to profitability.
LaMastra has a lot of catching up to do, said retail expert Howard Davidowitz, of Davidowitz & Associates of New York. The camera industry has changed dramatically in the last five years, he said.
Davidowitz wonders if Ritz & Wolf will be able to sell electronics at a high enough margin -- or about 35 percent -- when there are so many online and big box retail competitors who sell at about 15 percent margins.
One advantage Ritz & Wolf has, he added, is having many stores in malls.
He said investors “never would’ve put in money if they didn’t believe (LaMastra) had a shot to do this. The whole bet is on him.”
LaMastra noted that Ritz & Wolf is still the largest chain of camera sales and digital imaging stores in the country. And the company’s Web site did 35 percent more sales during the Christmas season than the previous year, he added. The chain started selling Verizon phones last year.
He also said the company secured $25 million in bank financing to rebuild the chain.
Some changes coming to stores include: simplified menus of services built around the headings “share, display and save,” and a “print bar” with six to 12 computer stations where shoppers can make photos calendars and books, most that can be ready in one hour.
“What will make this company successful,” he said, “is a relentless strategy that focuses on our core business, imaging.”
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