Strategy

Stater Bros. chairman, president and CEO Jack H. Brown was pleased with the company’s second-quarter performance especially given the challenging environment.

Consolidated sales in the 13 weeks ended March 30 totaled $963.8 million, up $1.9 million (or 0.2%) from the previous year. Sales for the 26 weeks ended March 30, 2014 were $1.95 billion, representing a $17.2 million (or 0.9 %) increase from the same period in the prior year.

Covington, La. — Stirling Properties has acquired John Toomey & Co., a commercial real estate company based in Mobile, Alabama. Stirling will add Toomey’s 1.8-million-sq.-ft. portfolio to its own, bringing the total to 15.5 million sq. ft.

John Toomey and his team will join Stirling Properties, with Toomey serving as broker/new business development coordinator for the Mobile area.

The CEO search continues at Crocs, but the casual footwear maker does have a new president.

Seattle -- Starbucks Coffee Company is expanding its presence in Latin America, with plans to open locations in Colombia, Bolivia and Panama.

Starbucks said it is on track to open its first store in Colombia, in the city of Bogota, in mid-summer 2014 through a joint venture between two of its longest-term business partners in the Latin America region – Alsea and Grupo Nutresa. During the next five years, the joint venture plans to expand aggressively in Bogota and to other major cities in Colombia.

La Paz, Bolivia - Bolivian drugstore chain FarmaCorp S.A., has entered into a five-year agreement for Revionics Price Optimization with Revionics Inc. FarmaCorp was searching for a price optimization solution and a partner that would help analyze customer demand and shopping preferences.

New York – A user-centric approach is the best way to enhance trust, transparency and privacy in personal data usage. In conjunction with A.T. Kearney, the World Economic Forum has released three reports as part of its Rethinking Personal Data initiative.

New York -- Kohl’s Department Stores and Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions have teamed up with Plug and Play to participate in Plug and Play Retail, an accelerator program that is focused on technologies and teams innovating in the retail industry. (Based in Sunnyvale, California, Plug and Play is a business accelerator that specializes in growing tech startups.)

3M brand Post-it is sponsoring Startup Weekend, a program through the nonprofit UP Global that helps entrepreneurs launch their businesses in one weekend.

As part of this sponsorship, Post-it Brand will provide products to approximately 300 Startup Weekend events throughout the United States. Through this partnership, the Post-it brand will play a vital role in the idea-building and sharing processes among the event participants.