Finance & Capital Management

Los Angeles — CBRE Group has appointed Chris Ludeman global president of Capital Markets.

Ludeman will oversee the global growth and integration of CBRE’s Capital Markets Service business line, which includes Investment Sales, Debt & Structure Finance and Capital Advisors activities worldwide, working with CBRE’s Capital Markets leaders around he world.

A 33-year veteran of CBRE, Ludeman most recently served as president of the Capital Markets business in the Americas.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. plans to hire 55,000 seasonal associates for the 2013 holiday season, up from 50,000 last year. In addition, the retailer intends to transition more than 35,000 associates from temporary to part-time and another 35,000 associates from part-time to full-time.

Imagine you are at in a major department store’s corporate headquarters as your team prepares numbers for the upcoming holiday season. The frenetic pace of retail holiday hiring can frazzle even the most experienced manager, and diligently checking every box in the employee onboarding process can seem laughably optimistic in the rush to find, hire and get as many employees as possible going in a matter of days.

Solutions Management, a leading national retail and corporate maintenance company, has appointed Michael DiTaranto as the company’s senior operations manager.

SMI partners with retailers and corporations to provide maintenance services which include floor care, window cleaning, high dusting, power washing and janitorial services. Recovery services include emergency services, mold testing and remediation, flood restoration and fire restoration.

Atlanta -- The Home Depot has appointed CVS executive VP and chief healthcare strategy and marketing officer Helena Foulkes to its board of directors.

Foulkes, 49 will be a member of the Finance and Leadership Development & Compensation Committees.

Charlotte, N.C. — Fiesta Restaurant Group has selected the AMTdirect software platform to manage its portfolio of more than 300 company-owned and franchised locations in the U.S. and Latin America.

AMTdirect’s integrated platform will streamline processes, consolidate real estate data across the business and provide Fiesta with a 360-degree view of its entire portfolio.

Charlotte, N.C. — Rite Aid Corporation has selected AMTdirect’s real estate software solution to manage its portfolio of more than 5,800 locations. AMTdirect’s integrated platform will help Rite Aid define and implement its real estate strategy by consolidating data, streamlining key business processes and informing decision-makers at all levels.

Indianapolis — Simon Property Group and Tanger Factory Outlet Centers have announced that construction has begun on Charlotte Premium Outlets. The first phase of the planned 400,000-sq.-ft. center will open in the summer of 2014. The project is a 50/50 joint venture between Simon and Tanger.

Charlotte Premium Outlets will feature Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th and more than 90 other outlet stores.

Tanger is providing site development and construction supervision to the venture. Simon is providing management services and marketing.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. reportedly plans to hire 70,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming holiday season, about 20% less than the 88,000 seasonal workers it hired for last year’s holiday season.

According to the Associated Press, Target wants to give full-time employees more opportunity to take on extra holiday hours. The retailer also wants to better anticipate and schedule for fluctuations in holiday traffic. About one-third of seasonal employees brought on last year obtained full-time jobs at Target.

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Cross-channel experiences are vital to customer experience. Recent customer experience studies of retail executives — by Oracle Corp. and Tata Consultancy Services — show that to 50% and 47% of respondents, respectively, cross-channel experiences are vital to providing overall customer experience.