International Business

Berlin, Germany –- Five leading German retailers are partnering with U.S. shopping app Shopkick. At launch, Shopkick’s German network is comprised of more than 1,400 stores: all Douglas (largest beauty retailer in Germany), Media Markt and Saturn (together the largest consumer electronics retail chain in Germany), OBI (one of the largest do-it-yourself retailers in Germany) and Karstadt (one of the largest department stores in Germany) locations.

Seattle -- The red ink got worse at Amazon in its third quarter as the Internet giant reported a net loss of $437 million in the third quarter, worse than analysts expected, compared with a net loss of $41 million in the year-ago period.  

Scottsdale, Ariz. -- GE Capital’s Franchise Finance business announced its first financing for the Corner Bakery Café brand. It  comes in the form of a $5.6 million loan to Texas-based MX Restaurants and Bakeries, which already operates seven Corner Bakery restaurants in the Houston and South Texas markets. MX will use these funds to pay off short-term debt related to a recent acquisition and to develop four additional units.  

San Francisco -- Gap Inc. announced it has signed agreements to open Old Navy stores in six Middle Eastern countries with franchisees Fawaz A. Alhokair & Co. and Azadea beginning spring 2015. The first markets include U.A.E., Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.   This is the second franchise market expansion for Old Navy. In March of this year, the brand opened its first franchise-operated stores in the Philippines.   

By Sandy Kennedy, president of RILA
   (Editor’s note: The president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, Sandy Kennedy, wrote the following op-ed in The Hill, discussing why chip-and-PIN is one important layer of protection retailers, banks and the government can provide consumers.)  

Oak Brook, Ill. -- Retail Properties of America, Inc. announced that it was assigned a BBB-corporate credit rating from Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services with a stable outlook.    S&P indicated in its announcement that the rating reflects RPAI’s measured investment and operating strategy, and strengthening portfolio fundamentals.   

The world’s leading beverage company is intensify efforts to generate high single digit earnings per share growth after strategies introduced earlier this year have been slow to take hold and third quarter earnings fell 13%.

Coca-Cola Company CEO Muhtar Kent unveiled a new slate of actions to reinvigorate growth and cut expenses in conjunction with the release of disappointing third quarter results. Revenues were essentially flat with the prior year at $12 billion during the quarter ended Sept. 26 while earnings per share declined 13% to 48 cents from 53 cents.

New York -- Retail design guru Rodney Fitch, 78, died on Oct. 20 at his home in Wiltshire, England, following a battle with cancer.    Fitch founded the design firm of the same name in 1972, and was appointed Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 for his ‘influence on the British Design Industry’.   He left Fitch, which is now owned by WPP, at the end of 2009.