Finance & Capital Management

Houston – Francesca’s Holding Corp. is still feeling the warmth of the holidays. The retailer is increasing its guidance for fourth quarter sales to between $103 million and $105 million, including a low-single-digit decrease in same-store sales.

Growth decelerated at Bed Bath & Beyond during the third quarter but the $1.3 billion the company spent buying back stock enabled it to achieve analysts’ earnings estimates.

Union, N.J. – Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. beat Wall Street expectations for its third quarter net earnings even as they declined from the same quarter in fiscal 2013. Net earnings equaled $225.4 million, a 5% decline from $237.2 million.

An increase in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses was a major factor in the net earnings drop. Net sales rose 3% to $2.94 million, from $2.86 million. Same-store sales rose 1.7%.
 

As uncertainty continues to swirl around Bitcoin and its role in the future of payments, Overstock.com is rushing full-speed ahead in embracing the digital currency.

The online retailer has installed a Bitcoin ATM at its corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City. The ATM is accessible 24 hours a day and allows the public to convert U.S. dollars to Bitcoin, and Bitcoin to U.S. dollars.

Los Angeles -- Fast-casual pizza franchise PizzaRev kicks off 2015 with the opening of the chain’s 20th location in just over two years. The new restaurant will open in La Habra, California, one of eight locations scheduled to open in first-quarter 2015. The upcoming expansion will include entrance into four new markets: Bakersfield, San Diego and Santa Barbara in California, as well as Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Surging sales at Old Navy helped parent company Gap Inc. post an increase in same store sales for November and December.

Gap’s same store sales for the November and December holiday shopping season increased 3%.

For December alone, the figure rose 1%, slightly above Wall Street estimates for a 0.7% increase, according to Thomson Reuters.

Boston -- Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources will begin going-out-of-business sales at all 287 Deb Shops retail locations nationwide beginning Jan. 9. Deb Shops, a Philadelphia-based women’s fashion discount retailer, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Dec. 4, 2014.  

Reuters is reporting a new complicating factor in the ongoing saga of efforts by Dollar Tree and Dollar General to buy Family Dollar.

Some 20 state attorneys general have joined the federal antitrust investigation of competing bids by Dollar General Corp. and Dollar Tree Inc. to buy Family Dollar Stores Inc., a development that potentially complicates the companies' efforts to win U.S. approval for a deal.

Read more