Mergers & Acquisitions

A veteran retailer with experience in running big national chains has joined City Sports as its new chief executive.

Framingham, Mass. – The TJX Cos. Inc. apparently has a taste for vegemite.

TJX is purchasing Trade Secret, an off-price retailer that operates 35 stores in Australia, from Gazal Corp. Ltd. for $58.45 million. The acquisition of Trade Secret provides TJX an opportunistic entry into Australia, where it currently operates one of its 13 buying offices.

A week after releasing more than 60 new cloud products and solutions through its cloud computing subsidiary Aliyun, Alibaba is making more bold moves.

Minneapolis – Supervalu Inc. beat Wall Street expectations for profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 and also announced it is considering spinning off its Save-A-Lot grocery banner. Net earnings soared 42% to $61 million, from $43 million in the same quarter the prior fiscal year.

Cost of sales rose at a slower pace than net sales, aiding profit growth. Net sales rose 3% to $5.41 billion, from $5.26 billion.

Supervalu Inc. said it is considering spinning off its Sav-A-Lot stores into a separate business as the discount chain reported a big earnings increase for the first quarter.

Net earnings soared 42% to $61 million, from $43 million in the same quarter the prior fiscal year. Cost of sales rose at a slower pace than net sales, aiding profit growth. Net sales rose 3% to $5.41 billion, from $5.26 billion.

Northbrook, Ill. - Hilco Merchant Resources LLC (HMR), a provider of retail disposition services such as liquidation and acquisitions, has purchased online retail and daily deal e-commerce platform Deal Genius LLC.

Deal Genius was launched as a flash retail sales web business in 2004. The site delivers daily deals on brand name home goods, apparel, consumer electronics, pet supplies and other merchandise.  The company was founded by CEO Chris Matsakis, who will continue in that role going forward.  

New York -- In its latest round of housecleaning, eBay is killing same-day deliveries and three mobile apps.

The company on Monday said it is shutting down eBay Now, a three-year-old service that allows customers to buy items from local sellers and then have the goods delivered as soon as the same day. The service, the company’s answer to the fast-growing on-demand delivery market, never really took off.

Growth prospects for the food and consumables business at 99 Cents Only just improved considerably following the appointment of a former Walmart EVP of merchandising to a key role.