Leon Levine, a college dropout who in 1959 emptied his bank account of $3,000 to found Family Dollar, growing it from a single store in downtown Charlotte into one of the country’s most successful discount retail chains, died April 5 at 85.
Mr. Levine, running Family Dollar alongside relatives and later his son, competed with malls and big-box stores in building a Fortune 500 company that landed his family on Forbes magazine’sWhen Mr. Levine retired as chairman in 2002, Jim Hance, then the chief financial officer of Bank of America and a Family Dollar board member, called him “a giant in the retail industry” with a “track record equaled by few companies.
Customers also didn’t need to drive a half-hour to buy Kleenex. Retail market analysts likened Mr. Levine’s strategy to 7-Eleven.“Family Dollar is to Walmart what the local 7-Eleven is to the supermarket,” retail analyst Linda Morris told the Associated Press in 1993. By 1984, Family Dollar had 850 stores in 17 states. Sales were $341 million a year. Expansion quickened. In 1989, the chain grew to more than 1,500 stores. By the mid-2000s, Family Dollar had more than 5,000 locations and sales topped $5 billion.Eventually, Walmart’s brutal low pricing caused strain on Family Dollar’s business, as it struggled to match the big-box retailer’s prices and global supply chain.
Leon Levine was born on June 8, 1937, in Wadesboro, N.C., and grew up in Rockingham, a town about 70 miles southeast of Charlotte. His parents owned a small department store called the Hub. Mr. Levine knew he was never going back to college. He also knew he wanted a business for himself. Having heard about a retailer in Tennessee selling everything for less than $1, Mr. Levine decided to slightly innovate on that concept. With $3,000 — all the money he had in the bank — Mr. Levine opened the first Family Dollar in downtown Charlotte, selling everything for less than $2.
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