Finance & Capital Management

Fresh & Easy plans to close 55 stores, which would leave the chain with about 110 locations, the Orange Country Register<span style="color: rgb(54, 54, 54); font-

The nation’s largest retailer of swimming pool supplies and equipment continued its march toward 1,000 units this month with five new locations in Florida and a new prototype near its Phoenix headquarters.

The privately held Leslie’s Poolmart chain opened four locations in Jacksonville and one in nearby St. Augustine, bringing its store count in Florida to 90 locations, or 10% of the company’s total store base of roughly 900 locations.

Off-price retailer Ross Stores feels so good about its sales performance and outlook that it has approved a 2-for-1 stock split scheduled for June.

The company said the split will be paid in the form of a 100% stock dividend to stockholders of record as of April 22. 

Ross Stores had fiscal 2014 revenue of $11 billion. 

The e-commerce world in which Deliv CEO Daphne Carmeli lives is one where the fastest delivery method is also the least expensive. How can that be?

A strengthened omnichannel fulfillment model helped slow the pace of sales declines at Toys “R” Us last year and now the retailer is looking to execute the next phases of transformation strategy to restore profitable growth.

The company spelled out details of its strategy on March 25 during an investor conference with presentations from Antonio Urcelay, chairman and CEO, Hank Mullany, president of Toys “R” Us, U.S. and Mike Short, executive vice president and CFO.

IKEA plans to open a store of truly epic proportions on a 22 acre site in Burbank, Calif., that will require the home furnishing retailer first demolish 19 existing structures.

Seattle – Outdoor retail co-op REI is being very “cooperative” in returning $168 million to its members. In 2014, 945,000 new members joined the co-op, taking active membership to a high of 5.5 million.

For the year, REI reported record annual revenues of $2.2 billion, a 10% increase from 2013. When the co-op performs well, active members receive an annual 10% dividend, based on their eligible annual purchases.

New York -- Fresh & Easy plans to close 55 stores, which would leave the chain with about 110 locations, the Orange Country Register reported. Fresh & Easy is owned by the Yucaipa Cos., which bought the supermarket chain out of bankruptcy in 2013 from U.K. retailer Tesco. It operates stores in Nevada, California and Arizona.

The stores slated for closing do not meet Fresh & Easy’s new model of “modern convenience.”

San Francisco – Electronic payment provider Square Inc. is extending its Square Cash e-checking service to businesses. Square is launching Square Cash Pro for Business as an offshoot of its Square Cash personal e-checking service, introduced in 2013.

Retailers using Cash Pro can accept payments from any Cash customer through the Cash app, via email, with $Cashtags, or online from Cash.me. $Cashtags allow businesses to accept electronic payments without revealing an email address or phone number.

Chicago – Bigger is often said to be better, but some big restaurant chains may not agree. The 500 largest restaurant chains in the U.S. accelerated their cumulative sales growth in 2014 to a 4% increase, totaling an estimated $274.4 billion, according to data released by Technomic Inc.

But some of the biggest brands among them, namely Subway and McDonald's, lost ground to focused-menu competitors and emerging fast-casual chains and reported overall sales decreases for the year.