Corporate Governance

Las Vegas -- Simon Property Group, a global leader in retail real estate, announced that it has opened a 25-store expansion of Las Vegas North Premium Outlets.

The center is now one of the largest in the country with 175 stores. The expansion features designer and name brands, including Neiman Marcus Last Call Studio, Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th, AG Adriano Goldschmied, AllSaints, Bally, Canali, Catimini, CH Carolina Herrera, Citizen, Helmut Lang, John Varvatos, Rag & Bone, Under Armour, and Vera Bradley.

Sally Beauty Holdings Inc. has confirmed that there was an “illegal intrusion” into the company’s payment card systems. It is the retailer’s second data breach in a little over the year. Here are insights on the breach from four security experts:

Steve Hultquist, chief evangelist at RedSeal, the security analytics company:

Philadelphia - Five Below will make its initial entry into the Kansas City, Missouri market with the opening of three stores on May 15. The tween and teen specialty retailer expects to open a total of 70 new stores during 2015, on top of opening 62 stores in 2014

The three approximately 7,500-sq.-ft. Five Below Kansas City stores are located in Tiffany Springs Market Center in Kansas City, Adam's Dairy Landing in Blue Springs, Missouri, and Olathe Pointe Shopping Center in Olathe, Kansas.

Toronto – Canadian Tire Corp. pumped up profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2015, expanding net income 17% to $88.3 million from $75.6 million a year earlier. Improved margins helped inflate net income totals.

Falling petroleum costs helped deflate revenue 2% to $2.51 billion from $2.57 billion, although consolidated same-store sales rose 5.5%. Same-store sales grew at all core retailer banners, including lifts of 4.7% at Canadian Tire, 8.6% at FGL Sports and 5.5% at Mark’s.

Seattle – Starbucks Corp. is denying reports that hackers illegally gained entry into accounts of some users of its mobile app. Multiple media reports have indicated hackers broke into hundreds of accounts of Starbucks app users, stole their stored value, and leveraged the reload function to obtain customer payment card data.

In a statement, Starbucks said news reports of a hack are false and that it occasionally receives reports of unauthorized activity caused by criminals re-using names and passwords stolen from other customer accounts.

Denton, Texas – It’s official: Sally Beauty Holdings Inc. has experienced its second data breach in the span of a year. Sally Beauty confirmed an “illegal intrusion” into its payment card systems has occurred in a posting on the retailer’s website.

Sally Beauty did not specify when the intrusion took place or what or how much customer data was compromised. The retailer initially announced it was investigating a possible data breach earlier this month.

Secaucus, N.J. – A reduction in cost of sales helped The Children’s Place Inc. boost net income 15% to $15.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 from $13.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier. The Children’s Place achieved this increase in profitability even as net sales dropped 1% to $404.9 million, from $410.15 million.

Negative impact of foreign currency exchange fluctuations drove the reduction in net sales. Same-store sales rose 0.7%.

Milwaukee – A sharp reduction in loss from continuing operations, primarily related to the sale of the Rainbow banner to Supervalu, helped Roundy’s Inc. cut net loss to $2.33 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015, from $4.52 million the same quarter a year earlier. Net sales rose 14% to $981.93 million from $862.69 million, while same-store sales dropped 1.6%.

Jackson, Miss. – As part of a larger plan to open 30 new corporate and franchised stores by the end of 2015 and 200 new stores by 2018, Newk's Eatery has entered a new development agreement with New Orleans-based Southeast Restaurant Group (SRG). The veteran operator of franchise and independent restaurants plans to open 15 Newk's locations throughout Southern Louisiana and in Houston.

Spartanburg, S.C. - Denny's Corp. is cooking up something good on the back end. The casual dining chain has chosen Havi Global Solutions LLC (HGS) as its lead supplier of supply chain and packaging solutions.