Finance & Capital Management

Activist investor Carl Icahn has prevailed in his fight to buy the Pep Boys – Manny, Mo & Jack.

Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises will buy the auto parts retailer for $18.50 per share. The all-cash deal is valued at approximately $1.03 billion.

Saks Fifth Avenue has another store to its lineup at Brookfield Place in downtown Manhattan.

The retailer, a division of Hudson’s Bay Company, said it will open a 16,750-sq.-ft. dedicated men’s store at the center, in spring 2017. As previously announced, Saks will open an 85,000-sq.-ft. full line store at Brookfield Place.

Photo: Pete Van Helden has been named chief executive of Stater Bros. Markets

Retail business industry veteran Lawrence Jackson has been named to the board of directors of cloud-based enterprise retail technology provider Aptos Inc. (formerly Epicor Retail Solutions).

Whole Foods Market has settled a dispute with the city of New York.

The grocer has agreed to pay $500,000 and to conduct regular in-store audits in a resolution of allegations that its stores in New York City were overcharging customers for prepackaged foods. The settlement was announced by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA).

The bidding war for Pep Boys continues with activist investor Carl Icahn increasing his bid for the auto parts chain.

Pep Boys – Manny, Mo & Jack on Tuesday said its board has delivered a notice to Bridgestone to terminate the agreement the chain made with the company last week. The action comes on the heels of a bid on Monday by Icahn Enterprises of $18.50 per share, up from its previous offer of $16.50, versus Bridgestone's offer of $17 per share. Icahn’s latest offer values the chain at about $1 billion.

Did a last-minute rush make for stronger holiday sales than many — including the National Retail Federation — had expected?

That’s the way it looks based on the MasterCard Spending Pulse report, which found that sales (excluding auto and gas) increased 7.9% during the holiday season, led by double-digit gains in e-commerce, women’s apparel and furniture.

The SpendingPulse report, released on Monday, December 28, looked at U.S. sales trends across cards, cash and checks from Black Friday to Christmas Eve.

On-demand alcohol delivery app Drizly is in a growth mode. The start-up has an average transaction of around $70, about three times higher than a normal, average in-store transaction, the founders told Boston.com. [Boston.com]