Labor & Employment

New York – The board of directors of Foot Locker Inc. has elected Steven Oakland as a director of the company. Oakland is currently president -international, foodservice, and natural foods of The J.M. Smucker Company.

Oakland has spent the bulk of his career at The J.M. Smucker Company, serving in increasingly senior positions. He has extensive experience in domestic and international retail operations at the company, having also served as president of U.S. Retail for Smucker's, Jif, and Hungry Jack.

Hamilton, Bermuda - In a deal that would combine the two largest mid-tier jewelry chains in the United States, Signet Jewelers Ltd. has agreed to buy rival Zale Corp. for about $690 million dollars. Signet will offer $21 in cash for each Zale share, representing a 41% premium over Tuesday's closing price.

A week after rival Home Depot announced plans to 80,000 seasonal spring employees, Lowe’s announced its plans to hire approximately 25,000 seasonal employees at its U.S. stores for the busy spring season.

Seasonal jobs available are focused on customer support and include cashiers, lawn and garden employees, loaders and stockers.

Signet Jewelers is in the process of acquiring all issued and outstanding stock of Zale for $21 per share in cash consideration. The transaction brings together two leading jewelry retailers with six brands available across three countries with combined sales of $6.2 billion.

Plano, Texas -- J.C. Penney Company has named Ed Record as CFO, effective March 24. He will also serve as executive VP. Record, 45, comes to Penney from regional department store chain Stage Stores, where he most recently served as COO and, before that, as CFO.

Record will succeed Ken Hannah, who was hired in May 2012 under former CEO Ron Johnson.

Madison, Wisc. – American TV & Appliance, an 11-store electronics chain with locations in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, is preparing to go out of business. The company is closing stores Feb. 18 and 19 to mark down prices and will launch its going-out-of-business sale at all locations on Feb. 20.

Abilene, Kansas – A group called Concerned Alco Stockholders (CAS), led shareholders David Pointer and Dilip Singh, it intends to mail its own proxy statement to stockholders of Alco Stores Inc. for the purpose of giving Alco stockholders the opportunity to vote for new board members at the Alco 2014 annual meeting of stockholders.

Dublin, Ohio -- The Wendy’s Company announced the sale of 70 restaurants in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex to Texas-based MUY Hamburger Partners, a Wendy's  franchisee. The transaction is designed to promote new restaurant growth and reimaging, while generating a more predictable revenue stream for the company.

San Francisco -- Wine.com, announced the addition of Peter Elarde as chief marketing officer and Greg Tatem as VP, engineering to the Wine.com executive team.
   
"We're on a roll. Wine.com is profitable, growing, hiring and innovating," said Rich Bergsund, CEO. "Peter and Greg are bringing new energy and talent to our management team, and will be instrumental as we continue building Wine.com into a great company, great brand, and an exciting place to work."

Kimberly-Clark North America has named Grant LaMontagne as president of customer development. In his new role, LaMontagne will lead all sales and customer development activities for the company’s operations in North America and will report to KCNA group president Michael Hsu.

LaMontagne joins KCNA from Clorox, where he was most recently SVP and GM for Clorox Professional Products business, which includes the health care, janitorial/sanitary and institutional foods channels.