Corporate Governance

Chicago -- Retail was the most compromised industry in 2014, making up 43% of breach investigations, according to a study by Trustwave that gathered data from 574 breach investigations the company conducted in 2014 across 15 countries. Retail made up 43% of the investigations, followed by food and beverage, which made up 13% of the investigations.

The “2015 Trustwave Global Security Report” found that 64% of the breaches in the retail industry were of e-commerce assets and 27% were of POS assets.

Los Angeles -- American Apparel announced it has appointed Brian McHale as senior VP and CIO, with responsibility for overseeing information technology and computer systems. In addition to providing critical support to American Apparel’s onsite hardware and software applications, McHale will also lead the development and expansion of the company’s retail digital capabilities alongside Thoryn Stephens, recently appointed chief digital officer.

Sidney, Neb. -- Cabela’s Inc. will open a 50,000-sq.-ft. store in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Upon opening, it will become the first Cabela’s location in Nova Scotia and second in Atlantic Canada, joining the Moncton, New Brunswick store opened in May.

The retailer expects construction on the store to begin in 2016, and anticipates a 2017 opening. It will be located in the Dartmouth Crossing development near the intersection of Lakeview Drive and Wright Avenue. North American Development is the developer.
 

Seattle -- Nordstrom announced plans to open a full-line store in a new open-air retail promenade to be built by Caruso Affiliated, in Carlsbad, California.

The 124,000-sq.-ft. store is scheduled to open fall 2018 and will be the fifth Nordstrom full-line store in the greater San Diego area. The company opened its first Nordstrom in San Diego at Fashion Valley in 1981.

New York -- Bloomingdale’s chairman and CEO Tony Spring talked about one of the company’s top-selling products (frozen yogurt!) and much more on Tuesday at the Retail Marketing Society’s “Reinventing the Store” conference in New York.

Here are 10 take-away quotes from his presentation:

“Our Forty Carrots frozen yogurt is one of our best-selling items. We have customers who come into our store five times a week for it.”

Minneapolis – Target Corp. is doubling the amount of its share buyback authorization from $5 billion to $10 billion. Under this authorization, through first quarter 2015, the company had invested a total of $3.7 billion to retire 56.9 million shares at an average price of $65.06 per share.

Vancouver – Lululemon Athletica Inc. struck a pose of profitability in the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Net income more than doubled to $47.8 million from $19 million a year earlier, aided by the elimination of a tax expense.

Net revenue increased 10% to $423.5 million, from $384.6 million. A 27% hike in direct-to-consumer net revenue, which now represents 20% of total company revenue, helped drive the overall improvement. Same-store sales dropped 1%.

Montreal – A reduction in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses helped elevate net earnings at Dollarama Inc. 22% to $64.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 from $53.2 million the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. Sales increased by 13% to $566.1 million from $501.1 million, aided by both new store openings and same-store sales growth of 6.9%.

San Francisco – The Gymboree Corp. saw its net loss increase to $22.48 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 from $15 million in the first quarter of the preceding fiscal year. Growth in cost of goods sold, selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses and interest expense drove the widening net loss.

Gymboree plans to close 30-40 stores and open 12 new stores during the fiscal year.

Total net sales climbed 1% to $261.73 million from $259.12 million, while same-store sales remained flat.
 

Jacksonville, Fla. - Regency Centers, a national owner, operator and developer of 321 grocery-anchored retail centers, needed a secure, dedicated platform that would integrate Symantec LiveOffice, Cisco Unity Connection and eMailSignature with its email solution. The company selected Intermedia Private Cloud to integrate and scale its business applications, thus enabling growth.