Mergers & Acquisitions

TORONTO — Sears Canada is closing three downtown stores in Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa. The move follows an announcement last month by Sears Holdings, the majority owner of Sears Canada, that it will raise about $770 million by spinning off parts of its business and selling prime real estate.

Mississauga, Ontario -- Canadian discount store chain The Bargain! Shop said Monday that it will acquire 10 retail locations from Hudson's Bay Co.’s closing Fields banner, effective Aug. 1.

The acquisitions will grow The Bargain! Shop to 237 stores.

"As part of our plan to further grow our organization, this is a great opportunity for us to expand our footprint across Canada," said Lloyd Davis, president of The Bargain! Shop. 

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Higher front-end sales for the month of February helped counter-balance lost revenue from Express Scripts prescriptions, Walgreeens reported Monday. Overall, the drug store chain reported a 1.5% sales increase to $5.9 billion.

Shares of Walgreens were up slightly by 8 cents to $32.77 in early morning trading.

This year’s total February sales benefited from one extra day because of leap year, the company noted. 

Sioux Falls, S.D. -- Verizon Wireless services retailer Z Wireless, which operates 12 stores throughout Kansas, on Monday announced the acquisition of T2 Wireless, another Verizon retailer which operates more than a hundred stores in the Great Plains.

Atlantic Street Capital, a private equity firm investing in the lower middle market, acquired Z Wireless in 2011.

San Jose, Calif. -- VeriFone Systems has acquired Lift Retail Marketing Technology Inc., Atlanta. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Lift Retail developed and markets the Lift Station, a network-connected digital marketing hub that integrates with point-of-sale systems (POS) in the convenience store and petroleum retailing market.

Garden City, N.J. -- A Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal said that Neiman Marcus has moved on from its earlier plans to open a department store in the Mall at Oyster Bay, located in Syosset, N.Y., and owned by Taubman, and has instead decided to open a new 100,000-sq.-ft. anchor store at Simon Property Group’s Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City.

The new store, slated for 2015 completion, will be part of a $200-million redevelopment of Roosevelt Field.

Toronto -- Sears Canada Inc. said on Friday it is shutting down three downtown stores in Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa. The move follows an announcement last month by Sears Holdings, the majority owner of Sears Canada, that it will raise about $770 million by spinning off parts of its business and selling prime real estate.

Under normal circumstances a dividend increase of 9% would be regarded as pretty solid, but Walmart has spoiled its investors in recent years, so when it boosted its annual dividend to $1.59 from $1.46 this week the increase was viewed as puny.