Labor & Employment

Los Angeles -- CBRE Group announced that it has acquired CBRE Memphis, a commercial real estate services firm that has served as CBRE’s affiliate in Memphis since 1996.

CBRE Memphis services include leasing, property sales, property management, project management and consulting. The firm has a staff of more than 100 and leases and/or manages approximately 14 million sq. ft. of property in the Memphis metro area, as well as in Jackson, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

Janna Potts has been named chief stores officer at Target, filling a position occupied for the past five years by Tina Tyler.

Target elevated Potts to the role of executive VP and chief stores officer, reporting to COO John Mulligan, after she previously served as senior VP of human resources focused on stores and distribution. Potts is a Target veteran who joined the company’s former Mervyn’s division in 1989. During her 27 year career she held leadership roles in stores, operations and human resources, according to the company.

Restructuring will be key to retail survival in 2016, according to veteran retail analyst Walter Loeb, who is worried about the future profitability of many leading traditional retailers as the year gets underway. “They are losing sales productivity in their stores while expenses rise and management bureaucracy grows,” Loeb wrote in an article on Forbes.com. [Forbes.com]

Saks Fifth Avenue has another store to its lineup at Brookfield Place in downtown Manhattan.

The retailer, a division of Hudson’s Bay Company, said it will open a 16,750-sq.-ft. dedicated men’s store at the center, in spring 2017. As previously announced, Saks will open an 85,000-sq.-ft. full line store at Brookfield Place.

Photo: Pete Van Helden has been named chief executive of Stater Bros. Markets

Retail business industry veteran Lawrence Jackson has been named to the board of directors of cloud-based enterprise retail technology provider Aptos Inc. (formerly Epicor Retail Solutions).

Whole Foods Market has settled a dispute with the city of New York.

The grocer has agreed to pay $500,000 and to conduct regular in-store audits in a resolution of allegations that its stores in New York City were overcharging customers for prepackaged foods. The settlement was announced by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA).

It is common during an election cycle for candidates to lament how nothing gets done in Washington. However, that’s not always a bad thing, as evidenced by some of the Retail Industry Leaders Association’s efforts to influence and repeal legislation.

As the 2015 legislative session comes to a close, RILA has identified several important regulatory and legislative wins that will benefit retailers and their millions of employees and customers.