Finance & Capital Management

Dollar General maintained its momentum in 2010 by achieving record sales, profits and expansion and it’s looking like 2011 will bring more of the same. Last year, Dollar General opened 600 new stores and remodeled or relocated another 504 units to end its fiscal year on Jan. 28 with 9,372 stores. The additional square footage combined with a 4.9% same store sales increase enabled the company to grow total sales by 10.5% to roughly $13 billion.

Beachwood, Ohio -- Developers Diversified Realty Corp. announced Friday it has furthered its commitment to risk management with the formalization of its Enterprise Risk Management Program.

The new program, according to Developers Diversified, is an integration of strategy, process, people and technology that promotes the identification, prioritization, ownership and management of the company's critical risks.

New York City -- Borders Group, which filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February and has announced plans to close about a third of its stores, said it plans to pay key employees as much as $8.3 million in incentives and retention bonuses, Bloomberg reported.

The retailer asked a judge to approve its plan in a filing Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Courty in New York. Borders said it has historically compensated employees through incentives.

New York City -- Save Mart Supermarkets saved more than $8,000 on a high-efficiency LED lighting retrofit of store in Ripon, Calif., through a partnership with the EnergySmart Jobs program.

Save Mart is distinguished as one of the first participants in the federally-funded program, which is an initiative of Energy Upgrade California and is administered by PECI, San Francisco. It focuses on creating new jobs through the implementation of energy-saving upgrades that help commercial retailers lower their operating costs.

New York City -- Optimism was in the air at Chain Store Age’s 47th annual SPECS conference, in Grapevine, Texas. Spirits were up, and so was attendance, dramatically so, among both the show’s attendees and exhibitors.

Indianapolis -- The Finish Line said Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit rose 12% with strong same-store sales.

The company reported net income of $34.3 million in the quarter that ended Feb. 26, compared with $30.6 million a year earlier.

The Finish Line said that excluding a charge for writing down the value of stores.

Revenue rose 2.7% to $384.6 million. Same-store sales rose 4%.

The company said operating margins were 9% close to its goal of double-digit margins for the full year.

New York City -- Tesco has installed wind turbines, each with a capacity of nearly 1 MW, at three of its grocery distribution centers.

The company installed two of the 90-meter, 800kW wind turbines at its distribution center near Newport in Wales, BusinessGreen reported. The other turbines are at two sites in England’s Midlands region.

SIDNEY, Neb. -- Cabela’s Inc. announced that Beth Pritchard has been appointed to its board of directors.

“I am delighted that Beth has joined our Board,” said Tommy Millner, Cabela’s CEO. “Beth’s impressive retailing expertise, marketing knowledge and leadership experience will be invaluable as we continue to focus on our strategic initiatives and look to profitably expand our retail store count.”

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- In yet another example of how discount stores are dominating the retail industry these days, Fred's Inc. reported strong earnings and sales growth for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company reported fourth-quarter net income of $8.6 million, or 22 cents per diluted share, a 49% increase over last year's reported net income of $5.8 million or 15 cents per diluted share. For the year ended Jan.

Ronald Sargent and Frank Brown -- the CEO of Staples and the dean of an international business school, respectively -- have been nominated for election to The Home Depot's board of directors at the company’s upcoming annual meeting on June 2.

Separately, David Batchelder has informed the company that he has decided not to stand for re-election at the annual meeting. Batchelder, founder and principal of Relational Investors LLC, has been a director since 2007.