International Business

Stanley Black & Decker and Newell Rubbermaid reported modest but steady growth in the fourth quarter, results that position both companies on solid ground going forward.

At Stanley Black and Decker, net sales for the fourth quarter came in at $2.98 billion, up from $2.88 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. This was mainly due to increases in volume and price, but partially offset by currency. In terms of net income, the company pulled in $145.8 million, up considerably from last year's $56.1 million.

Mumbai, India – Alibaba may not be the only large Asian e-commerce retailer selling shares in the U.S, stock market. Leading Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart is reportedly considering launching a $5 billion U.S. IPO.

New York -- Swedish fast-fashion giant Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) is in full expansion mode. Along with reporting a 17% increase in fiscal 2014 profits, the company said it plans to open 400 stores in 2015, with most of the openings in the United States and China. It will also enter several new markets, including India and South Africa.  

In other news, H&M is launching a new beauty concept, H&M Beauty, with an initial debut in about 900 stores and online, starting in fall 2015.

New York -- Amazon reported higher-than-expected profit for its fourth quarter, fueled by growth of its Prime memberships and holiday shoppers, even as its sales came in below forecasts. It’s a reverse for the e-commerce giant, which has typically sacrificed profits for rapidly-growing sales.

For the fourth quarter, net income totaled $214 million, down from $239 million in the year-ago period, but better than analysts had expected. Sales rose 15% to $29.3 billion, lower than the expected $29.7 billion.

King of Prussia, Pa. – EBay Enterprise, an EBay Inc. company, has selected IBM as a hybrid cloud platform to enhance its Magento Hosting Partner ecosystem.

This agreement is designed to expand global infrastructure options for Magento's more than 240,000 retail users by giving them access to the IBM SoftLayer infrastructure.

Issaquah, Wash. -- Costco Wholesale Corp. has declared a special one-time dividend of $5 per share that will result in approximately $2.2 billion being returned to shareholders.  

In its mostly recently reported quarter, Costco posted a 17% increase in profits, driven by lower gasoline prices and strong growth in store sales and membership fees.

Hangzhou, China – Although Alibaba Holding Group Inc. reported a healthy sales increase for the third quarter of fiscal 2015, it became a victim of its own expectations as it still missed on revenue projections and also reported declining profits. Net income totaled $964 million, a 28% drop from $1.36 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

Matthews, N.C. – Howard Levine, CEO of Family Dollar Stores Inc., reportedly plans to sell between one and two million shares of company stock in the next 10 days. According to the Charlotte Business Journal, Levine filed his intention to make the sale with SEC.