Hampstead

Nearly a year after being acquired by rival Men's Wearhouse in a contentious takeover struggle, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers will lay off 122 employees at the company's corporate headquarters in Hampstead, Md., a company spokesman said Monday. The layoffs represent about 15 percent of the 780 employees at what has been Carroll County's fourth-largest employer. The employees losing their jobs were duplicating work being performed at Men's Wearhouse offices in New York City and Fremont, Calif., said Men's Wearhouse spokesman Diego Louro, although he declined to specify the types of positions being eliminated.

Eminence Capital LLC, a shareholder that's suing Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. for rejecting a $1.6 billion takeover bid from rival Men's Wearhouse, accused the men's retailer Tuesday of resorting to "desperate tactics" to protect management jobs by planning to buy outdoor clothing retailer Eddie Bauer. In a letter to Bank's board, Eminence, a New York hedge fund that owns a 10 percent stake in Men's Wearhouse and about 5 percent of Bank's stock, called the $825 million cash-and-stock Bauer deal "a poor strategic decision for Jos. A. Bank at a price that's excessive and almost surely destroys shareholder value."

Men's Wearhouse moved Monday to pin Jos. A. Bank Clothiers in a corner with a hostile $1.6 billion bid for its smaller rival. With the offer of $57.50 cash for each of Hampstead, Md.-based Bank's outstanding shares, Men's Wearhouse is bypassing the retailer's management to appeal directly to shareholders. The so-called hostile takeover bid is the latest volley in the war to control a merger that analysts now see as all but inevitable.

Men's Wearhouse rejected Jos. A. Bank Clothiers latest effort to acquire it, denying the retailer's request to review nonpublic company information. The board of Houston-based Men's Wearhouse decided that providing such access isn't in its shareholders’ best interest, the company announced Monday. It rejected Jos. A. Bank's $2.3 billion acquisition offer in October, saying it undervalued the men's apparel chain.

Buy-one-get-three-free wasn’t quite the deal for Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. The Hampstead-based...

HAMPSTEAD, Md., — JoS. A. Bank Clothiers reported that its net sales for the fiscal year were $1.05 billion, representing a 7.1% gain as compared with net sales of $979.9 million in fiscal year 2011. Comparable-store sales decreased 0.5% during fiscal...