International Business

Chesapeake, Va. – Dollar Tree has promoted former COO Gary Philbin to the new position of president and COO. Philbin, who has served as COO of Dollar Tree since 2007, spent 30 years in various merchandising and operations executive positions in the grocery vertical before joining Dollar Tree as SVP of Stores in 2001.

Vancouver, British Columbia -- Lululemon Athletica Inc. on Monday said that its CEO, Christine Day, will step down when a successor is named. The announcement comes some three months after Lululemon, in an embarrassing and very costly snafu, had to pull 17% of its trademarked Luon pants from its store shelves after they were found to be too sheer.

FOSTER CITY, Calif. — Visa has signed agreements with three leading mobile point-of-sale providers to enable merchants of all sizes to accept Visa payments using mobile technology. Early adopters include iZettle, SumUp and SCCP Group’s Swiff — all of whom will have their mobile acceptance hardware and software tested and approved for use with Visa payments.

By John Paluszek, [email protected]

This time it is different.
 
But the question remains: Is it different enough? Let us, then, count the ways.
 
The “tipping point” may seem facile, but the current dramatic increment of tragic incidents is now more toxic to more corporate reputations.  That’s a big deal, generating a new dimension of company action.
 

PITTSBURGH — Berkshire Hathaway and an investment fund affiliated with 3G Capital have completed their acquisition of H.J. Heinz Company. 

Heinz shareholders will receive $72.50 in cash for each share of common stock they owned as of the effective time of the merger, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes. As a result of the completion of the merger, the common stock of Heinz will no longer be listed for trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Heinz expects no further trading after the close of business on June 7.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — CHS Inc., an energy grains and foods company and the nation's leading farmer-owned cooperative, has promoted Roger Baker to VP and GM of CHS Europe. The company also announced that SVP and CEO of CHS Europe Claudio Scarrozza plans to retire. 

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced a $15 billion share buyback program at its annual shareholder meeting on Friday. It also said it expects to generate $10 billion in global e-commerce sales by the end of the fiscal year.

The new buyback program replaces the previous $15 billion plan, which had about $712 million remaining under the 2011 authorization.  

For much of the past decade the persistent problem Walmart had to address with shareholders at its annual meeting was a long dormant share price. That’s not the case this year, but there are plenty of other issues to concern shareholders.