Article mentions that they had to change their name to "The Signet Group" ... the now parent company of Zales/Kay/Jared. I'd be interested to learn more about that transition
Indeed, in the UK they own H Samuel and Ernest Jones - with exactly the same business model and value as Ratner’s. So you could argue it didn’t have much long term impact.
Well they closed hundreds of shops in the years immediately following, and already owned H Samuel back then. Not sure about E Jones, which is a little more upmarket anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signet_Jewelers