Montgomery Ward

Negotiations between the City Council and officials of Montgomery Ward to keep the company's store here open has ended and the store will close as planned. "As far as we are concerned discussions have ended and the store will close," Mayor Robert Henning said in an interview last week. Henning's statement was confirmed by a spokesman for the retail chain. "No arrangement was able to be worked out," said Charles H. Thorne, media relations manager for Montgomery Ward in Chicago.

City Council members said this week that they are confident they have persuaded Montgomery Ward officials to reverse a previous decision to close their store here. But representatives of the Chicago-based retailer say that although negotiations are under way, no commitment has been made. "The store will not close. We (the council) have got the store to agree to stay," Lynwood Mayor Robert Henning said in an interview Wednesday. Councilman E. L.

City officials Tuesday met with local representatives of Montgomery Ward in a last-ditch effort to persuade the Chicago-based retailer to reverse its decision to close its Lynwood store. Mayor Robert Henning, City Manager Charles Gomez and other officials met for about an hour with Ward representatives at the firm's Rosemead executive offices. Ward representatives asked that details of the meeting not be made public at this time, Henning said.

The Chicago-based retailer, which is undergoing a massive reorganization to boost profits, cited "economic reasons" for its decision to close the 12-year-old outlet on March 1. About 75 full-time and 130 part-time employees will be affected, said spokesman Chuck Thorne, who added that those employees will be given preferential consideration for openings at other Ward's locations in the area.

Catalogue sales store operators for Montgomery Ward filed the lawsuit against the department store chain over its plans to discontinue catalogue operations over the next year. Attorney Paul Gutierrez, representing catalogue agency operators in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., said the suit charges Montgomery Ward and its parent firm, Mobil Corp., with breach of contract and fraud. The suit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Aug.

Advertising Age reported that Montgomery Ward is having second thoughts about dropping its catalogue business and may transfer those operations to Signature Group, a wholly owned subsidiary. The trade publication said that Ward and Signature officials acknowledged that they are looking at the transfer of catalogue operations to Signature, but they would not comment further.

Montgomery Ward, the nation's sixth-largest retailer, announced today that it is scuttling its famous catalogue and going out of the mail-order business, bringing an end to an era that began in 1872 when the store was founded. Bernard F. Brennan, president and chief executive officer of the company, said the catalogue business has steadily been on the decline, losing $279 million since 1979.

"Buying Auto Insurance Is Usually Hit-or-Miss" (For What It's Worth, June 24) should be reproduced every month. I have been shopping around for a satisfactory program for my two cars--for more than a month an all I get is more confused. I have tried the Auto Club, Sears, Montgomery Ward, Cigna, Aetna and others, and everyone seems to compute their programs on a different level. The article is correct in stating that a quote with identical coverage is given from the same insurance company, but a different branch, or broker--is quoted a different price.