Finance & Capital Management

Despite a still-challenging economic climate, Loblaw’s profit in the second quarter beat analysts’ expectations, and was bolstered by strong sales in its recently acquired Shoppers Drug Mart.

Sales at the pharmacy and beauty retailer, which contributed to Loblaw’s net sales for the first time this quarter, accounted for more than a quarter of the food retailer’s total sales of C$10.31 billion in the quarter.

Eden Prairie, Minn. – The loss of a large tax benefit caused Supervalu’s net income to plummet 49% in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 to $43 million from $85 million in the year-ago period.

Revenue slipped to $5.23 billion from $5.24 billion.

Walmart named Greg Foran president and CEO of its U.S. stores division to replace Bill Simon, who is leaving the company after an eight-year run.
 

Miami -- Ryder System, a leader in commercial fleet management and supply chain management solutions, announced the launch of its new “That’s Ryder” brand advertising campaign. The campaign, the first of its kind for Ryder in nearly two decades, includes the debut of a new tagline for the company – Ever better.

Norwalk, Conn. - The Priceline Group Inc. has successfully completed its previously announced tender offer to purchase all outstanding shares of common stock of OpenTable Inc. for $103 per share in cash. The all-cash transaction is valued at $2.6 billion.

Seattle -- Starbucks that its consolidated net revenue growth accelerated 11% in the third quarter, to $4.2 billion. Consolidated operating income increased 25%, to $769 million.

The coffee giant raised the number of net new stores it expects to open in its Americas region from 600 to 650.

Global same-store sales increased 6%, marking the 18th consecutive quarter of global comp growth of 5% or greater. Same-store sales in the United States rose 7%.  

Second quarter sales at Amazon increased 23% to $19.3 billion thanks to growth of new and existing products, but the company reported an even bigger loss than it did the prior year.

San Jose, Calif. – EBay is offering $3.48 billion in debt bonds in a sale that will close July 28. EBay intends to use the net proceeds from the offering, for general corporate purposes including loan repayments.

$400 million of the debt will mature in 2017, with the rest coming due in stages through 2024.