Finance & Capital Management

A red-hot real estate market and sky-high property values have some retailers, including Macy’s and more recently, McDonalds, feeling the pressure to cash in on the value of their real estate assets. How? By spinning off store properties and/or land assets into a REIT and entering into a lease-back deal.

New York -- Dollar General is giving major financial support to a cause that may appeal to many value-oriented shoppers.

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation announced that it has awarded over $4 million to approximately 870 schools, nonprofits and literacy organizations to enhance and support youth literacy and education across the 43 states Dollar General serves.

Bentonville, Ark. – Five Walmart stores in central Florida are reportedly getting ready to serve the needs of hungry customers.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – The marketing head of a major Internet company has heard the siren call of Hollywood. Kathy Savitt, chief marketing officer of Yahoo, is joining Burbank, California-based movie and TV production studio STX Entertainment in October as president of digital business.

Savitt, who previously served as VP of communications and Amazon.com and chief marketing officer at American Eagle Outfitters, and also founded now defunct social commerce site Lockerz, had been in charge of marketing at Yahoo for three years.

Rite Aid associates plan to honor 274 students who have been named recipients of Folds of Honor educational scholarships provided by the Rite Aid Foundation’s KidCents program.

Dependent on Target for 43% of its revenue, licensed apparel company Cherokee Global Brand saw its market value obliterated after disclosing Target would not renew a decades old relationship.

New York -- The long-delayed, controversial American Dream retail-entertainment destination in the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, has snared three high-profile tenants.  

Hudson's Bay Company announced that three of its store brands — a 131,906 sq. ft. Saks Fifth Avenue, a 119,605 sq. ft. Lord & Taylor, and a 30,000-sq.-ft. Saks Off 5th — will be among the three million-sq.-ft. mega-center’s tenants. It is the first time Hudson’s Bay has housed all three of its U.S. banners in one location.

Huntington Beach, Calif. -- Quiksilver Inc. has got the OK on financing and on some store closures.

Quiksilver Inc. has received preliminary approval from bankruptcy court for a $175 million bankruptcy financing package. The surf apparel chain filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sept. 9.