Mergers & Acquisitions

Kevin Scott is joining Microsoft in the newly created role of chief technology officer (CTO).   Scott most recently served senior VP of infrastructure at LinkedIn, which Microsoft purchased in June for $26 billion.   

Every year after the holidays the same topics seem to dominate media coverage of the retail industry. The numbers are in, who’s closing stores? Who’s going out of business? Who are this year’s casualties in the great Clicks vs. Bricks War? This focus on post-holiday attrition is part of a larger conversation about the future of retail, one often tinged by notes of panic, dire predictions, and dramatic pronouncements such as: Online retail is damaging brick-and-mortar. Malls are dead! Retailers are shuttering hundreds of stores! 

Forest City announced it has closed on the sale of Shops at Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx to Urban Edge Properties for $32 million. The seller expects to net $9.2 million in the transaction.  

A combination of factors, including innovation, cross-border deal interest and the availability of cash reserves, bodes well for deal activity in the retail and consumer markets.   That’s according to a review by PwC, which reported that the retail and consumer deals market ended 2016 with an increase in deal volume and a decline in deal value when compared to 2015.   

Luxury Brand Holdings, parent company of Ross-Simons and Sidney Thomas, has appointed James M. Speltz as president.    Speltz will join the company’s board and oversee all business activities. Most recently, he was COO for Teikametrics, a software and service provider to Amazon.com third-party merchants.  

Schostak Brothers has added six multi-tenant properties to its “Shadow Walmart” portfolio of retail space adjoining supercenters, bringing it to a total of 67. The new additions are located in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.   “In the last decade, we have pursued an aggressive growth strategy in order to assemble one of the largest Walmart Supercenter shadow-anchored shopping center portfolios in the United States,” said Schostak COO Warren Strietzel.  

Eloquii, a fashion-forward online apparel retailer for women sizes 14 to 28, plans to test a physical store.   The retailer plans to open a “concept shop” in Fashion Centre at Pentagon City in Arlington, Va., Women’s Wear Daily reported. The 2,600-sq.-ft. store is scheduled to open in March.     Although only a three-month lease was signed, Eloquii executives see the store as a test to determine the potential for a brick-and-mortar strategy, the report said.

DDR has purchased a new Chicago center anchored by a Mariano’s supermarket for $81 million. The 137,618-sq.-ft. property is located on 3030 North Broadway in the Lakeview section of town.   XSport Fitness, PNC Bank, and Starbucks are tenants in the center along with Mariano’s, a chain Chicagoland founded by former Dominick’s deli worker Bob Mariano, who grew it to nearly 48 stores. The chain is now owned by Kroger.