Consumer Affairs & Relations

A unique perspective into the holiday season was provided by leading payments processor Vantiv when the company reported strong third quarter results but expressed reservations about the volume of activity during the fourth quarter.

The company said its third quarter revenues increase 14% to $532 million and net income on an adjusted basis increase 17% to $80 million compared to $68.1 million while adjusted earnings per share increased 25% to 40 cents from 32 cents.

Dodgeville, Wis. -- Lands' End in November will open its first standalone store in a shopping mall. The store will be located in the western Chicago suburbs, in the Yorktown Center Mall, Lombard, Ill.
 
The store officially opens to the public on Nov. 15, marking the first ever full-price Lands' End store outside of Madison, Wis. The company opens the doors on the new location in its milestone 50th anniversary year.
 

Pleasanton, Calif. – Several buyout firms are reportedly considering attempting a partial or total purchase of Safeway Inc., with Cerberus Capital Management LP among the potential bidders, according to Reuters.

Safeway has retained Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as an advisor, the report said.

Toronto – Sobey’s Inc. has signed a consent agreement with the Canadian Competition Bureau allowing it to proceed with the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Canada Safeway.

As part of the consent agreement, Sobey’s will divest 23 stores in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Sasketchewan. The deal, announced in June, will cost Sobey’s owner Empire Co. Ltd. about $5.7 billion.

New York - U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and a group of location analytics companies including Euclid, iInside (a WirelessWERX company), Mexia Interactive, Solomo, Radius Networks, Brickstream and Turnstyle Solutions have agreed to a code of conduct to promote consumer privacy and responsible data use for retail location analytics.  

Publix Super Markets has decided to sell PIX, the fuel/C-store concept it began testing in 2001. Circle K Stores, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alimentation Couche-Tard, will purchase 13 sites, of which 11 are located in Florida and two in Georgia.

Max Arnold & Sons, a family-owned company located in Hopkinsville, Ky., which has been in operation for more than 60 years, will purchase the site located in Tennessee.

Lumber Liquidators increased its net income in the third quarter of fiscal 2013 58.4% to $20.4 million, from $12.9 million in the year-ago period.

Net sales grew 24.5% to $254.3 million, from $204.3 million in the same period a year earlier. Same-store sales grew 17.4%, driven by a 9.8% increase in the number of customers invoiced and a 6.9% increase in the average sale.  

Canada Safeway is up for grabs, and the Canadian Competition Bureau is allowing Sobey’s Inc. to proceed with the acquisition of substantially all its assets.

As part of the consent agreement, Sobey’s will divest 23 stores in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Sasketchewan. The deal, announced in June, will cost Sobey’s owner Empire Co. Ltd. about $5.7 billion.

New York -- Coach reported a decline in first-quarter profit amid declining North America sales. The company had net income of $217.88 million, down from $221.38 million in the previous year.
 
Net sales for the quarter fell 1% to $1.15 billion from $1.16 billion a year ago, below analysts' estimate of $1.19 billion.

Washington, D.C. -- The National Retail Federation calculated retail industry job gains at 15,200 in September, and 289,000 jobs year-over-year, a 2.4% increase over the same month last year and 2.0% higher than total private sector jobs over the past year.