International Business

Sunderland, Vt. - William R. McLaughlin has been named as the new president of the Orvis Company Inc. He will succeed Raymond G. McCready, who will retire later this year.  

McLaughlin will assume the post July 27. McLaughlin's early career included leadership roles with Pillsbury and PepsiCo. At Pepsi, he managed several of their international businesses and rose to become president of Frito Lay Europe, Middle East & Africa.  From 2000 to 2012, McLaughlin was president & CEO of the specialty retailer Select Comfort Corp.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears Holding Group Inc. has filed a $1.57 billion subscription rights offering with the SEC for its real estate investment trust (REIT) known as Seritage Growth Properties. The offering would give Sears shareholders the right to buy up to 53.3 million shares of the REIT at a share price of $29.58.

Seritage also plans to sell 9.5 million class C non-voting shares to Fairholme Capital Management LLC, Sears’ second-largest shareholder, at the same price. This would give Fairholme a roughly 12% stake in Seritage.

New York -- Alibaba Group wants small business owners from the United States to sell their merchandise on its e-commerce sites is looking for more American products to sell to Chinese consumers.

“We need more American products,” said Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma in a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday.

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Franklin, Tenn. – Retailers lose $1.1 trillion worldwide due to inventory distortion. According to new research from IHL Group, by fixing problems such as out-of-stocks and excess inventory from overstocks, retailers could improve their revenues by 7.5%.

The combined cost of poor merchandise planning alone equals $452 billion. Inventory distortion costs retailers nearly $158 for every person on the planet, and $252.2 billion annually in North America. The Asia/Pacific region contributes 39% of all inventory distortion.

Lynnwood, Wash. – Zumiez Inc. met Wall Street expectations for profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2015.

Net income rose 12% to $2.8 million from $2.5 million the same period a year earlier, aided by slowing growth rates of cost of goods sold and selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses.

The retail industry is more competitive than ever, but Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told a gathering of more than 14,000 associates and shareholders that he is more worried about the enemy within the company than competitors.

“The truth is the real villains are lurking within the company,” said McMillon. “Our real villains are things like bureaucracy, complacency, a lack of speed, or a lack of passion.”

Framingham, Mass. – The proposed $6.3 billion merger of Staples Inc. and Office Depot Inc. has cleared a global regulatory hurdle. Staples has received clearance from the Commerce Commission of New Zealand to acquire all the outstanding shares of Office Depot, which trades in New Zealand as OfficeMax.

Washington, D.C. – The National Retail Federation (NRF) is publicly supporting legislation that would amend the federal Taft-Hartley Act to allow governors to intervene in port labor disputes rather than being required to ask the White House to do so.