Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren testified he was so shocked when Martha Stewart called him to break the news she had a secret deal with JCPenney that he hung up on her.
“I don’t remember hanging up on anyone in my life, “ Lundgren testified during a Manhattan Supreme Court trial over her pact with Penney. “That’s how frustrated I was with Martha Stewart on that phone call.”
After recovering from his initial shock, Lundgren said he repeatedly asked Stewart why she had not first told him about her talks with Penney so that he might have had a chance to counter the deal.
Stewart began answering him in stilted language as if she were reading from a text written by lawyers, he told the courtroom.
“I was completely shocked and blown away by what she was saying,” Lundgren testified. “She said this was going to be good for Macy’s. I think that’s when I hung up.”
Stewart wasn’t the only one cozying up to Lundgren as a friend while also double-dealing behind his back, the Macy’s CEO said.
Shortly after JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson made a splashy presentation to Wall Street on Penney’s turnaround plans, Lundgren said he wrote to Johnson to congratulate him.
“Thank you, Terry. Your note means a ton to me,” Johnson replied in an e-mail dated Jan. 27, 2012, which was submitted as evidence by Macy’s.
“I consider you a friend.”
Lundgren testified that he “didn’t know about those other e-mails [Johnson] was writing at the same time.”
Lundgren was referring to a flurry of catty e-mails disclosed last week, in which Johnson joked with colleagues that the surprise announcement with Stewart would give Lundgren a “migraine.”
Macy’s unleashed more provocative e-mails yesterday, including one in which a top Penny executive snarkily told Johnson it “sounds like Macy’s pretty unhappy with the Martha deal: [frowning- face symbol].”
Johnson’s sarcasm was apparent in his email reply to the colleague: “I am so sad… They look asleep at the wheel.”
Martha kept her talks with Johnson secret right up to the end, Lundgren said, despite the fact that she had sought several favors from him in the weeks leading up to the surprise announcement.
In addition to accepting Lundgren’s invite for a business trip to Haiti after its earthquake of the summer of 2011, Stewart also asked Lundgren just last October for a $10,000 VIP ticket to a posh New York event honoring Ralph Lauren and Oprah Winfrey.
A few weeks later, she asked for and got exclusive tickets to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
Lundgren’s testimony is the latest salvo in the battle over whether Stewart can legally keep her deal with Penney, in which the retailer shelled out $38.5 million for a 17-percent stake in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
The pact also includes a 10-year, $200 million licensing agreement for Martha Stewart brand home goods.
jcovert@nypost.com
Macy’s CEO ‘hung up’ on Martha Stewart betrayal
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