Strategy

Honolulu, Hawaii -- Jones Lang LaSalle announced Thursday it has named commercial real estate veteran Kirk Horiuchi as senior VP in its Retail Division.

In this newly created position, Horiuchi will oversee the company’s leased and managed portfolio, and will be tasked with growing the firm’s third-party retail business in Hawaii.

TOPEKA, Kan. — Matthew Rubel is stepping down as CEO of Collective Brands, the company announced Thursday. Rubel will also give up his role as chairman of the board and as a director for the company. Michael Massey has been named the interim CEO and Scott Olivet has been named the company's non-executive chairman.

Washington, D.C. -- A report released Thursday by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates said that import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to remain at about the same levels as last year through July before starting to resume increases later this summer.

New York City -- Macy's and some 4,000 of its New York-area workers said Thursday they have reached a tentative contract agreement after a night of negotiations.

The agreement, if ratified, will avert what could have been the department store chain's first strike in nearly 40 years.

"Following an all-night negotiating session, Macy's is pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with Local 1-S of the RWDSU on a new five-year agreement," Jim Sluzewski, Macy's spokesman, said.

Bentonville, Ark. -- A report Thursday by Bloomberg said that Wal-Mart Stores is battling rising commodity prices by working with its suppliers to avoid price increases, among other strategies.

“We find creative ways to work around it,” Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart International, told Bloomberg. “First we try to keep our costs as low as we can, secondly work with our supply chain as best we can.”

Walmart executive were said to be among a group of major retailers who met with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday to discuss the elimination of the city’s “food deserts,” essentially areas where roughly 450,000 residents don’t have convenient access to fresh food.

According to an AP report, representatives from Walmart, Walgreen, Aldi and three other chains who were not identified met with Emanuel who reportedly showed a detailed map of the city’s food deserts and made an appeal for projects in specific areas.

Irvine, Calif. -- Steadfast Cos. said Wednesday that financial services industry veterans Greg Brakovich and Jamie Shepherdson have joined forces with the company to provide advisory services and to facilitate the strategic expansion of the sales and the distribution effort for the company’s privately placed and publicly registered investment products.

Walmart Canada president and CEO David Cheesewright is scheduled to speak next week at the Jefferies 2011 Global Consumer Conference near Boston. Walmart doesn’t typically push country presidents on stage at investor conferences except at its own analysts’ meetings when it has hosted events overseas in such places as China earlier this year or prior years in Brazil and the United Kingdom. However there are some interesting things going on in Canada these days, and the Jefferies event is an opportunity for Walmart to showcase some of its management talent.