Corporate Governance

Greenboro, N.C. – The Fresh Market Inc. has elected Michael D. Casey, CEO and a director of Carter’s Inc., and Robert K. Shearer, formerly CFO of V.F. Corp, and currently a director of Church & Dwight Co. Inc., as independent directors. With these additions, The Fresh Market’s board has nine directors, eight of whom are independent directors.

New York – Specialty eyewear Warby Parker has reportedly received $100 million in financing the company plans to use to build new brick-and-mortar stores. According to the Wall Street Journal, the round of financing, led by T. Rowe Price, values Warby Parker at $1.2 billion.

Mississauga, Canada – Target Corp.’s exit from Canada is reportedly not turning out as smoothly as the retailer had hoped. According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, Target is returning 55 leases it could not find a bidder for to their landlords.

Target is also returning 19 leases for office and warehouse space in Canada. The company operated a total of 133 stores in Canada; meaning about 40% of the store leases did not attract bidders.

San Jose, Calif. – eBay Inc. shareholders have reportedly voted themselves a measure of power to nominate directors on the company’s board. According to the Wall Street Journal, 59% of shares voting at the meeting approved allowing investors who hold at least 3% of eBay’s shares for three years to nominate up to 25% of the company’s directors.

Sunbury, Pa. – A reduction in pretax income drove an 11% year-over-year decline in net income at Weis Markets Inc. during the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Net income fell to $13.11 million, from $14.77 million the same quarter a year earlier.

Net sales fared better, rising 4% to $712.43 million, from $687.13 million. Same-store sales rose 3.4%.

Dallas – Tuesday Morning Corp. has promoted Melissa Phillips, who currently serves as executive VP and general merchandise manager, to the newly created position of president and COO. In this role, Phillips will be directly responsible for merchandising, store operations and marketing, and will report directly to CEO Michael Rouleau.

Woonsocket, R.I. - CVS Health showed vitality in the first quarter of fiscal 2015. The retailer beat expectations in areas such as earnings per share (EPS) and pharmacy benefit management (PBM) operating profit.
 

Houston - Sunoco L.P. has appointed Matthew S. Ramsey as chairman of the board. Ramsey succeeds Sam L. Susser, who has resigned from the board to pursue other new business interests.

Ramsey has served as a director of Sunoco L.P. since August 2014, serving as chair of the audit committee and serving on the compensation committee. Ramsey also serves as a director of Energy Transfer Equity L.P. and is chairman of the audit committee, as well as a member of the compensation committee.

Secaucus, N.J. – Three days after an activist investor group filed a presentation with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urging the election of new board members and claiming poor performance, The Children's Place Inc. has its own investor presentation with the SEC.

The presentation endorses the re-election of three board candidates at the May 22 annual meeting: Norman Matthews (chairman of the board), Kenneth Reiss (chair of the audit committee) and Stanley W. Reynolds (member of the audit committee).

San Francisco - Visa Inc. is expanding its technology research capabilities globally and appointing Min Wang to senior VP of Visa Research Labs. Wang joins Visa from Google Research, where she was a senior staff research scientist focused on data mining.

She also held senior staff research roles at HP Labs China and at the Unified Data Analytics Department at the IBM Watson Research Center.