Finance & Capital Management

New York – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Friday closed its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange with its shares up 38% from its I.P.O., closing at $93.89.

The stock opened for trade on Friday at $92.70 shortly, a 36% jump above its initial public offering price of $68 a share. More than 100 million shares changed hands in composite trading in the first 10 minutes of trading.

Chicago -- Urban Retail Properties, LLC, announced the acquisition of Oakland Square and Oakland Plaza in Troy, Michigan, by its parent company RAIT Financial Trust. Purchase price was $50.8 million.

Both properties are adjacent to Oakland Mall, a 1.5-million-sq.-ft. super-regional center that Urban Retail currently manages.

Houston -- JLL announced it has expanded its retail tenant representation capabilities in Houston with the addition of Matt Parsons. In his new role, Parsons will be responsible for identifying and securing new space for expanding retailers in the market, and will partner with Mark Raines, who joined JLL in July to lead the firm’s Houston retail brokerage practice.



Stockholm -- The U.S. payments market is getting a new player: Klarna, a Swedish e-commerce company focused on simplifying buying, plans to expand to the U.S. market in early 2015. The nine-year old company has an impressive track record in Europe that includes more than 25 million users and 45,000 retailers including Asos, Spotify and Zara.

Seattle -- Nordstrom on Friday opened its first store in Canada, at Chinook Centre in Calgary, Alberta. The two-level, 140,000-sq.-ft. store is also the department store retailer’s first location outside the United States.
 
"Being in business for 113 years, this is really a historic time for us as we open our first store in Canada - our first international store," said Sheila Wooldridge, Nordstrom Chinook Centre store manager.

The merger between Albertsons and Safeway is expected to close in a few months and when it does the combined company already has a new senior leadership and field operations structure in place.

The companies late Friday announced key leadership positions it said drew on strong talent within both organizations to build an innovative, customer-focused and growth-driven company.

L'Oréal USA Women in Digital, a program that recruits, supports and promotes female entrepreneurs in technology, has announced the three new companies that have been selected as winners of its 2014 NEXT Generation Awards.

The winners — GLAMSQUAD, Jibo and Shareablee — were honored Thursday evening at an event in New York City hosted by athlete, fashion pioneer, actress and L'Oreal Paris spokeswoman Aimee Mullins, to celebrate both established and up-and-coming female leaders in technology.

Dublin, Calif. -- dd’s Discounts, a division of Ross Stores, Inc., will open a new store in the California Central Valley on Sept. 27. The store is located in the Shaw Village Shopping Center in Clovis.  

Including this new location, dd’s Discounts will operate approximately 150 locations in 13 states and is on schedule to complete its expansion plan to open approximately 20 locations in 2014.