David Moin

Tue, May 13, 2025, 12:47 PM5 min read

Monroe Milstein, a pioneer in off-price retailing as the cofounder of Burlington Coat Factory died Friday in Bal Harbour, Fla., where he lived.

The former chairman, chief executive officer and president of Burlington Coat, which now operates as Burlington Stores, was 98.

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Milstein’s career began in 1946 when he joined his father’s wholesale business, Amherst Fashions, launched in 1924. The business sold coats and suits to specialty and department stores in New England and the Midwest.

To earn some extra money, the younger Milstein sold merchandise on Saturdays at a discount from their showroom in the garment center. It did well, so in 1972, to get into retailing in a bigger way, Milstein along with his wife, Henrietta, bought their first property, a clothing factory in Burlington, N.J., where the company is still headquartered. It became their first store.

In 1982, Milstein discontinued the wholesaling business he inherited to focus on off-price retailing. He took the company public in 1983, when the business had only 32 stores, giving it the wherewithal to proceed with an aggressive retail expansion. In 2006, the company was purchased by Bain Capital for $2.06 billion and the Milstein family sold its shares for $1.3 billion. Monroe left the business, though two of his sons, Andrew and Stephen continued in executive positions for a while. In 2013, the company went public again.

As the years passed, Burlington’s offerings expanded from just outerwear into sportswear, accessories, footwear, home products, beauty and other categories. It was Milstein’s wife who not only encouraged her husband to purchase the Burlington property, but kickstarted Burlington’s evolution into a multicategory retailer, initially by launching a childrenswear department. She died in 2001.

It took some time for shoppers to catch onto the fact that Burlington no longer sold just coats, but eventually they did as Burlington’s ads became more image-oriented than price-based, with tag lines such as, “We’re more than great coats.” The off-pricer doubled down on the effort by changing its name to Burlington Stores in 2009.

While several other off-pricers have disappeared in the last couple of decades — Loehmann’s, Daffy’s and Filene’s Basement among others — Burlington was able to survive and thrive through much of its history by steadily rolling out stores, building volume and vendor clout, and through the hands-on, savvy dealmaking approach of Milstein who had a rare ability for knowing the right price for the right merchandise. As the story goes, when Milstein signed a lease for a store in Pine Brook, N.J., on the site of a former furniture store, he needed the walls knocked down and received an estimate from a demolition company that he thought was too high. Instead, he approached a crew that happened to be outside working on the highway on a hot summer day, and they agreed to knock down the walls for the price of two cases of beer.