Labor & Employment

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Mattel has announced that Robert A. Eckert, 57, will retire as CEO, after 11 years with the company, effective Dec. 31. The board of directors has named Bryan G. Stockton, 58, who has held the position of chief operating officer for the last year, to succeed Eckert as CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2012. Eckert has agreed to continue in his role as chairman of the board, and the board has elected Stockton as a member of the board, effective January 1, 2012.

New York City -- American Eagle Outfitters will pay a signing bonus of $3.3 million along with a base salary of $1 million to its new incoming CEO Robert L. Hanson, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported.

Hanson takes over for the chain’s longtime chief executive James V. O’Donnell, who is set to retire Jan. 28.

El Segundo, Calif. -- Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market announced it is hiring for more than 20 stores that are set to open early next year.

The company expects to hire more than 600 employees for the new stores, which will be opening in California and Nevada.
 

Seattle -- Nordstrom said Friday it will shutter its underperforming University Mall store in Orem, Utah. The 122,000-sq.-ft. store is slated to close on Feb. 24.

The store, which opened March 29, 2002, didn’t perform to company standards, according to Nordstrom.

New York City -- New York & Co. reported Thursday that its loss widened in the third quarter to $6 million, from $4 million last year.

Sales dropped to $216.7 million, compared with $238.2 million a year earlier. Same-store sales decreased 5.2%.

An early November announcement that an area of downtown Atlanta would become the site of a multi-modal transit hub was welcome news to anyone who has ever sat in the southern city’s many traffic snarls.

From dazzling LCD/LED video displays to rotating mannequins to staircases with color-changing LED lights, Uniqlo’s Manhattan flagship is massive in scope and bold in design.

The three-level, 89,000-sq.-ft. store is the largest Uniqlo outlet in the world. It’s a big store for a company with big ambitions: Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing Co., the world’s fourth-largest apparel retailer, is targeting $50 billion in global sales by 2020.

Dallas -- SRS Real Estate Partners announced it has hired Kyle Stonis as a senior VP in the Atlanta office.

Stonis will focus on strengthening the investment sales platform for SRS in Atlanta and throughout the Southeast.

Previous to SRS, Stonis worked for Bull Realty in Atlanta as a retail investment broker and senior VP.