Mergers & Acquisitions

Former Walmart CEO Lee Scott is among four new members of board of directors at Yahoo, a company whose CEO Marissa Mayer serves on the Walmart board.

New York - Barnes & Noble Inc. plans to spin off its Nook e-reader unit as a separately traded public company from its retail operation by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2016. The retailer made this decision as its consolidated net loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 shrank from $114.8 million to $36.7 million, missing Wall Street estimates.

HanesBrands plans to acquire DBApparel of France from Sun Capital Partners, provided consultation with European and French works councils representing DBA employees is completed and customary closing conditions are met.

Minneapolis – Best Buy Inc. is reportedly considering selling off its Chinese business or finding a partner to help operate it. According to the Wall Street Journal, Best Buy is working with Bank of America Merrill Lynch to examine its options in China.

New York -- Juicy Couture is closing its U.S. stores as it makes plans to debut a new retail store format in key high-traffic locations, including New York City, Los Angeles and Vancouver, in early 2015. The company expects to open 127 stores and in-store shops during the next five years in major cities across the globe.

The Barnes & Noble board has given the company the green light to separate its retail and Nook Media businesses to optimize shareholder value.

The company anticipates completing the separation of the businesses into two separate public companies by the end of the first quarter next year.

Tewksbury, Mass. – Following the dismissal of former president and CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, the board of directors of Demoulas Super Markets Inc. has elected retail executives Felicia Thornton as COO and Jim Gooch as chief administrative officer, and the two will serve as co-CEOs. Both Thornton and Gooch had recently been serving as consultants to the company.

San Jose, Calif. - EBay Inc. has appointed Craig Hayman as president of its eBay Enterprise business. Hayman brings more than 30 years of enterprise technology leadership including executive positions at IBM’s Industry Cloud Solutions and WebSphere businesses.