Amazon.com Ranked No. 1 Financially Healthiest Retail Company for Second Year in a Row in Consensus Advisors' Retailer Health Ratings

Aeropostale and Urban Outfitters Rank No. 2 and No. 3

New York, June 15, 2010 - Consensus Advisors, a boutique investment bank focused on the retail and consumer products industries, today announced the release of the 2009-2010 Retailer Health Ratings™, a benchmarking tool providing essential financial context to comp store sales data on nearly160 publicly traded retailers. For the second year in a row, Amazon.com is ranked the healthiest retailer in the United States.

The Consensus Retailer Health Ratings™ (RHRs) measure and compare retailers over a five-year period with regard to their: Healthy Growth, Asset Utilization, Pricing Power, and Balance Sheet Strength. The report lists an overall Retailer Health Rating for each retailer and also presents relative ranks within 20 retailing categories. In addition to the 10 highest rated retailers (shown below), Consensus will disclose the highest rated retailers in each of these categories in a webcast Tuesday at 1:00 pm. EST. Please visit www.consensusadvisors.com to register for the webcast.

The 2009-2010 Retailer Health Ratings Top 10 Financially Healthiest Retailers Are:

“This is a historically unique time to examine retailer health,” said Michael O’Hara, CEO of Consensus Advisors. “Our highest rated company, Amazon.com, has exploited the increasing availability of broadband internet and mobile technology to build a fast growing and highly efficient retailing super-power.”

“Other financially strong businesses in the RHR Top Ten, like Aeropostale, Coach, Guess and Lululemon, have used the exclusivity of their increasingly powerful, vertically-integrated brands to navigate the macroeconomic trauma of the last 18 months by taking market share from their competitors, maintaining margins and inventory turns and avoiding debt,” continued Mr. O’Hara.

“Top 10 retailers CVS, Walmart and Bed, Bath & Beyond continue to efficiently deliver a broad assortment of staple items to consumers at accessible price points year after year. Non-cannibalizing acquisitions and strategic opportunism, such as CVS’s purchase of Caremark and Bed, Bath & Beyond’s share capture following the liquidation of Linens ‘n Things, positioned the healthiest retailers to grow during the recession while others retrenched. Additionally, The Buckle continues to amaze us by its performance over the past five years. They have continuously managed to carry the apparel teens and young adults want regardless of the shape of the economy,” concluded Mr. O’Hara.

“In light of the significant trauma to the economy over the past 18 months, it is more important than ever to study retailer health comprehensively rather than relying on potentially misleading comp store sales growth statistics,” said Doug Stebbins, Managing Director, Consensus Advisors. “Our Retailer Health Ratings™ dive into five years’ worth of data and cover healthy growth, asset utilization, pricing power and balance sheet strength. Within these component measurements, we study items such as store cannibalization, growth momentum, modified interest coverage, gross margin volatility, margin-adjusted inventory turn and many other metrics. The end result is an easy-to-digest rating and ranking system that shows the relative health of nearly 160 major retailers.”

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About The Retailer Health Ratings: The Consensus Retailer Health Ratings™ give Boards of Directors, management, investors and other stakeholders a useful benchmarking tool that provides essential context to retailer comp store sales data. The RHRs measure and compare retailers over a five-year period with regard to their: Healthy Growth, Asset Utilization, Pricing Power, Balance Sheet Strength. The report lists an overall Retailer Health Rating for each retailer and separately rates them in the four component categories. Retailers are assigned scores and placed in one of five tiers. To obtain the Retailer Health Rating Annual Report please go to www.retailerhealthratings.com

About Consensus: Consensus Advisors is a boutique investment banking and financial advisory firm based in Boston. We focus on complex transactions for companies undergoing significant transformation of their business models. Our professionals have decades of relevant industry experience representing and advising companies, entrepreneurs, investors, creditors and lenders in financial and brand equity transactions. We have extensive relationships with multiple resources necessary to help companies at every stage of development including commercial banks, private equity, venture capital and hedge funds, factors, investors in distressed assets, and real property and equipment lessors. Consensus approaches each engagement with discipline, diligence and confidentiality. All of our senior professionals have extensive advisory backgrounds, as well as years of experience as senior executives or principals of one or more operating companies.

Capital raising activities are undertaken through Consensus Securities LLC, a member of the FINRA and the SIPC.