March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. may close their Ruehl and Martin + Osa “concept” clothing stores as consumers trim discretionary purchases, according to a UBS AG analyst.

“It’s really just a matter of time,” Roxanne Meyer of UBS in New York said today on a conference call. “It could be by the end of this year.”

The highest U.S. unemployment in more than a quarter century has consumers cutting budgets for clothing and accessories. Aeropostale Inc. announced last month the closing of its Jimmy’Z stores, and Christopher & Banks Corp. closed its Acorn stores at the end of 2008. That trend is likely to continue, Meyer said today in a telephone interview.

“If you’re not a relevant brand right now, you’re not going to get whatever little market share and traffic there is to get,” she said.

Retailers create concept stores to target specific groups of shoppers based on age or style preference, according to Brian Sozzi, an analyst at research firm Wall Street Strategies in New York. Abercrombie and American Eagle don’t break down profit performance for their concepts. Abercrombie does report Ruehl’s monthly sales. Neither retailer has announced any planned store closures for this year.

Abercrombie, based in New Albany, Ohio, operates 29 Ruehl stores across the U.S. Ruehl targets customers older than 22 who have “graduated” from Abercrombie’s namesake stores, according to spokesman Eric Cerny. Ruehl, which reported a 33 percent sales drop in February at stores open at least a year, has posted double-digit monthly sales declines since September 2007, Meyer said.

Jani Strand, an American Eagle spokeswoman, referred all questions about Martin + Osa store performance to the company’s March 11 earnings report.

Promotion-Driven

American Eagle has 28 Martin + Osa stores, targeting 28- to 40-year-olds. Sales in 2008 rose 30 percent at locations open at least a year, the company said. That increase was driven primarily by promotions, and the brand has experienced profit erosion since September, according to Pittsburgh-based American Eagle.

The company has a “very definitive” goal for loss reduction in 2009, Chief Executive Officer James O’Donnell said on a March 11 conference call.

Ruehl put a new design and planning team in place about six months ago, and Abercrombie is starting to see positive results, CEO Michael Jeffries said on a Feb. 13 call.

‘Very Realistic Look’

“If this exercise doesn’t work -- however, I am very comfortable that it will over some period of time -- we’ll take a very, very realistic look at that business,” Jeffries said.

Abercrombie said it will open 16 stores across all concepts globally in 2009, none of them Ruehls, Cerny said. The company will look carefully at the 50 leases that come up for renewal this year, Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Ramsden said last month.

American Eagle will open 28 new stores under the American Eagle and aerie concepts. No new Martin + Osa stores will be opened, Strand said.

Abercrombie fell 83 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $24.94 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. American Eagle rose 1 cent to $12.84.

To contact the reporter on this story: Allison Abell Schwartz in New York at aabell@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 27, 2009 16:20 EDT