Finance & Capital Management

St. Louis – Brown Shoe Company increased net income 17% to $18.1 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, from $15.4 million in the same period the prior year. Net sales rose 2% to $635.9 million from $621.7 million, while same-store sales at its primary Famous Footwear brand climbed 1.6%.

Brown Shoe credited back-to-school sales at Famous Footwear, supported by a strong omnichannel customer experience, as helping to drive second quarter results. Brown expects positive same-store sales growth at Famous Footwear in the third quarter.

Orlando, Fla. -- JLL continues to build its retail brokerage practice in Florida with the addition of Andrew Dieringer, Terrence Hart and Brandon Delanois. The trio bring more than 40 years of retail agency leasing and tenant representation experience to the team, and will be based in the firm’s Orlando office. Together, they will partner with John Lambert, Florida Retail Market Lead for JLL, and Justin Greider, VP of JLL, to help investors achieve their asset goals and work with retailers to identify and secure optimal new locations.

San Antonio, Texas - Tryperion Partners, a private real estate investment firm, has acquired Gateway Plaza, a 97% occupied, 138,510-sq.-ft. community shopping center anchored by Burlington Coat Factory that is located in San Antonio’s burgeoning metropolitan area. The acquisition, which is Tryperion’s second of a San Antonio REO property in less than a year, includes additional land for future development.
 

Chicago -- JLL has bolstered its tenant representation practice with the addition of Jason Press as VP in the firm’s Chicago office, working on the team lead by executive VP Lew Kornberg.

Press joins JLL with more than 15 years of real estate experience facilitating hundreds of transactions valued in excess of $500 million. Prior to JLL, he co-founded North Park Properties to acquire investment properties in the Chicagoland area.

One retail category that’s been fascinating to watch evolve over the last several years is the women’s athletic apparel segment. Judging by the number of times reporters have asked me about women’s athletic apparel retailers in the last few months, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Tewksbury, Mass. – In what should mark the end of a six-week standoff that began July 18, Arthur T. Demoulas, who was fired by his cousin Arthur S. Demoulas as CEO of the Market Basket supermarket chain in June, has agreed to buy the company for $1.5 billion. Since Friday, July 18, many Market Basket employees and customers have staged a boycott, dramatically slowing down business at the company’s 71 stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

New Albany, Ohio – Challenged by fast-fashion competitors and teens more interested in technology than clothing, Abercrombie & Fitch reported on Thursday that its revenue decreased 5.8% to $890.6 million in the second quarter, missing Wall Street projections. Its income, however, beat estimates, and rose 13% to $12.9 million, from $11.4 million a year earlier. The company cited an ongoing profit improvement initiative as driving its net income growth.

Canton, Mass. – Charges related to the decision by Destination XL Group Inc. to exit the Sears Canada Direct business resulted in the retailer’s net loss growing to $4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, from $1.6 million a year earlier.

Total sales fared better, driven by increased traffic and higher conversion rates, increasing 6% to $103.7 million, compared with $98 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2013.Same-store sales rose 7%.

San Francisco – Williams-Sonoma Inc. reported that its third quarter income rose 4% to $50.7 million from $48.9 million in the year-ago period, in line with forecasts. But the retailer issued a disappointing outlook for the current quarter.

Second quarter net revenues grew 6% to $1.04 billion, from $982 million in the year-ago period.

Total same-store sales increased 5.7%. Direct-to-customer revenues grew 9.4%.

Hamilton, Bermuda – Sixty-five days of performance from its new Zale division cut net income at Signet Jewelers Ltd. but boosted sales at Signet Jewelers Ltd. in the second quarter of fiscal 2015. Expenses related to the Zale acquisition helped reduced net income 13% to $58 million, from $67.4 million a year earlier.