Corporate Governance

Kroger has announced that it had added transgender health benefits to one of the company’s health insurance plans, according to Forbes. "Beginning January 1, 2016, medical procedures including surgery and drug therapy for gender reassignment will be covered up to a $100,000 lifetime maximum for eligible associates and their dependents,” the company wrote on their employee social network. (Forbes)

Washington, D.C. -- EDENS announced Huge, a full-service digital and design firm headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, with offices worldwide, will open a new office at Union Market in Washington, D.C. Union Market is a 45-acre district that is planned for over 7 million sq. ft. of space.

Detroit -- X Team International, an international alliance of retail real estate advisors, announced that partner, Stokas Bieri Real Estate has negotiated two 10-year leases for Great Gatherings in Virginia and Maryland.

McLean, Va. -- Macerich announced that VITA, the new, luxury 30-story residential tower at the mixed-use urban expansion for Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, has received the 2015 Award for Excellence from Delta Associates.

Brick-and-mortar analytics provider RetailNext Inc. is expanding into the marketing space.

RetailNext has acquired Pikato, http://www.pikato.com/ a Chicago-based company whose cloud-based software enables personal, one-to-one mobile customer interactions.

Pricing can be a mysterious and dimly lit dimension for many retailers.

Sally Beauty Supply LLC is emerging from the pricing twilight and entering the zone of effectively targeted price strategy in a new partnership with Revionics. The specialty beauty chain will deploy Revionics Price Optimization solution, which includes price management, strategic price simulation and optimization.

Could American Apparel founder and ousted CEO Dov Charney thwart the chain’s Chapter 11 filing? "Any CEO who has built a company from scratch -- which has become a sizable globally known enterprise that is nearly synonymous with the CEO himself and his personality -- is going to be able to cause some sort of disruption in the bankruptcy court," said Matt Covington, a managing director at Conway MacKenzie, a financial consulting firm that specializes in bankruptcy transactions, in a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Domino’s Pizza is not satisfied with just improving the quality of its pizza.

A few years after a successful marketing campaign where it focused on making a better pizza, Domino’s is now focusing on making a better store network.

HRC Advisory’s annual CEO and CFO survey revealed a major disconnect between capital investments, retail growth and operating strategies.

Chain Store Age spoke with HRC Advisory CEO Antony Karabus about the survey.

What did you find most surprising about the survey results?

The majority of retailers are not doing a very good job when it comes to integrating online channels with brick-and-mortar stores.

What’s more, many retailers are not properly balancing their investment spend, sometimes investing more in online while neglecting their physical stores, which puts them in danger of losing market share.