Jean-Yves Sabot

With company-record net income of $58.4 million and sales gains of 15.2 percent (including comparable store sales rising 8.9 percent) for its fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, JoS. A. Bank was a rare 2008 success story.

Take a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard today and you’ll find it’s not as sleazy or creepy as it once was. Urban renewal has been in full force with the rise of the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards) and the Hollywood & Highland Center shopping complex adjacent to the reinvigorated and timeless tourist attraction, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Like the boulevard it resides on, Frederick’s of Hollywood has been undergoing a makeover of sorts. But for the 61-year-old cataloger/retailer of racy women’s lingerie, the past decade has been a rough ride. It began in 2000, with a two-and-a-half-year reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy