Corporate Governance

Sears Holdings Corp. is seeking to stop its bleeding and raise more cash by closing another 104 stores and selling its iconic Craftsman tools brand.   The struggling retailer said it has reached an agreement to sell Craftsman to Stanley Black & Decker for a net present value of about $900 million, including future royalty payments. Sears, which will continue to sell Craftsman products, had put the brand, along with its Kenmore and DieHard brands, up for sale several months ago.   

We sat down with chief executives and senior managers from 20 retail real estate companies at the ICSC New York National Deal Making show in December, and each and every one had something to say about e-commerce competition. Something, but not the same thing. They fell into two groups.

There were those who said that online retail’s magnitude was greatly overblown. They held that the media over-covered online sellers and placed them on a lofty perch not backed by the facts. They had a point.

Retailers and developers looking for potential expansion spots in the coming year should bypass Gotham and head to Grand Rapids.  

The chief technology officer of Nordstrom is leaving the company after less than a year on the job.      Kumar Srinivasan is leaving the upscale department store company effective Friday, Jan. 7, to return to India, GeekWire reported.    Srinivasan, who joined Nordstrom in March, after serving as the co-founder and CEO of software company Evocalize. Prior to that, he was the former general manager at Amazon Payments Merchant Solutions unit   

A new acquisition gives Walmart an even stronger foothold in the world of e-commerce.   Jet.com, which was purchased by Walmart in September for approximately $3 billion, has acquired online footwear retailer ShoeBuy for approximately $70 million. The purchase expands Jet.com’s footwear offerings, and gives Walmart more firepower in its battle against Amazon, which owns ShoeBuy’s main competitor, Zappos.   The deal closed on Dec. 30.  

Finance chiefs play expanded role in managing the retail transformation

With the retail environment undergoing the most complex changes in our generation, the sustainability of the current retail economic model is in question.

Historically, retail CFOs, as the principal financial officers, were primarily responsible for more traditional finance, treasury, regulatory, information delivery and related functions.

As a result of the labor community’s failure to produce critical outcomes it pursued for the presidency, Congress and governorships, unions will be forced to abandon much of the political and legislative agenda they had developed in hopes of a friendly Clinton administration.

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