Finance & Capital Management

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reportedly claiming that comedian Tracy Morgan was not wearing a seat belt when a truck driven by one of its drivers struck a vehicle Morgan was traveling in on the New Jersey Turnpike on June 7, critically injuring Morgan and killing one of his fellow passengers. According to Bloomberg, Wal-Mart said Morgan is partially or fully to blame for his injuries in a filing in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey.

Cupertino, Calif. – Following an investigation launched in June, the European Union (EU) is reportedly formally accusing the Republic of Ireland and Apple of striking an improper deal that has kept Apple’s taxes in Ireland artificially low since 1991. According to CNN, the arrangement has allowed Apple to pay a tax rate as low as 2% on earnings of Irish subsidiary.

Men's Wearhouse has named Scott Norris as Men's Wearhouse brand and Moores brand president and Paul Fitzpatrick as Jos. A. Bank's brand president. Additionally, it has appointed Jim Thorne EVP of direct sourcing. All three will report to Mary Beth Blake, the company's president and chief merchandising officer.

San Jose, Calif. – eBay Inc. is reversing course on its previous decision to keep its fast-growing online payments business PayPal as part of the company, and is instead spinning the unit off as a separate publicly traded company. The decision will generate $180 million for activist investor Carl Icahn, who attempted to force eBay to spin off PayPal in a public dispute earlier this year. It comes as the payments sector is heating up and generating increased interest as Apple gets set to launch its Apple Pay mobile payments service.

Dallas - 7-Eleven has selected the Raid 7 software solution from WeDo Technologies for the retailer's Mexican operations. With more than 1,700 stores across the country, 7-Eleven México needed an enterprise business software suite to deliver end-to-end visibility and control of its retail processes; analyzing and identifying risks and monitoring and controlling deviations.

American Express has promoted Neal Sample, currently Enterprise Growth’s chief information officer and chief marketing technologist, to president. He will report to American Express CEO Kenneth I. Chenault and will serve as a member of the company's operating committee.

Sample replaces Dan Schulman, formerly group president of Enterprise Growth, who has resigned his position to become CEO of eBay’s spun-off PayPal business.

Deerfield, Ill. – Walgreen Co. met Wall Street expectations for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 despite swinging to a loss. Walgreens posted a net loss of $239 million, largely driven by an accounting charge from its Alliance-Boots acquisition, compared to net earnings of $657 million in the same period a year earlier.

Walgreens recorded a non-cash loss of $866 million in the quarter that ended Aug. 31 because it decided to exercise early its option to buy the remaining stake of Alliance-Boots that it did not already own.

New York  -- The outlook for retail in the Northeast remains quite positive, with demand from national, local and franchise companies across a broad range of categories, according to Levin Management.