Mergers & Acquisitions

Indianapolis — Simon Property Group plans to distribute all of the common shares of Washington Prime Group Inc. to Simon stockholders. Following the distribution, Washington Prime will be an independent, publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WPG.”

Washington Prime (www.washingtonprime.com) will own or have an interest in 54 strip centers and 44 smaller enclosed malls across the United States, comprising approximately 53 million sq. ft.

Supervalu, the owner of Cub Foods, along with four Twin Cities-based independent grocery retailers, have each entered into definitive agreements to acquire select Rainbow Foods grocery stores. In total, they agreed to acquire 18 Rainbow grocery stores, including 13 Rainbow pharmacies and three Rainbow liquor stores in Minnesota.

Dublin, Calif. -- Ross Stores’ board approved a succession plan that elevates Barbara Rentler from president and chief merchant to CEO, effective June 1, replacing Michael Balmuth who will transition to executive chairman.

Current president and COO Michael O’Sullivan will continue in his present position.

Other promotions effective June 1 include: Lisa Panattoni to president, merchandising; and Bernard Brautigan to group executive VP merchandising.

Toronto -- Hudson’s Bay Company named Paul V. Beesley as CFO, effective in June.

Beesley is a senior executive with extensive experience in financial management and strategic development across a range of leading Canadian-based companies. From 2000 to 2014, he served in a number of executive roles with Empire Company Limited, a corporation with annual sales in excess of $19 billion and operations in retailing and related real estate, including chief corporate development officer of the Sobeys unit and executive VP and CFO of Empire.

The Neiman Marcus Group has added Adam Brotman, Phillipe Bourguignon, and Vivek “Vic” Gundotra to its board of directors.

Brotman is chief digital officer for Starbucks and is responsible for Starbucks’ core digital businesses, including mobile and mobile payments, Web, card, loyalty, e-commerce, wi-fi and the Starbucks Digital Network. Prior to joining Starbucks in 2009, Brotman held key leadership positions at leading digital media companies including Corbis and PlayNetwork.

New York -- U.S. retail and consumer  merger & acquisition activity during first quarter 2014 was primarily driven by five multibillion dollar transactions, with more than half aligned to the food and beverage sector, confirming a positive deals outlook for the year, according to PwC’s U.S. retail and consumer deals insights first quarter 2014 report.
   

Venice, Fla. — Carrabba’s Italian Grill has signed a long-term ground lease for a 1.31-acre outparcel in the parking lot of the Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Venice, Florida. Carrabba’s plans to begin the construction of a new restaurant immediately, with the grand opening slated for late this year.

New York -- Google has purchased analytics firm Adometry, which helps advertisers get a better return on digital advertising by providing better attribution on the data collected about ads, including whether an ad was viewed, and whether it led to a sale.

Here is the statement from the Google Analytics team: