Corporate Governance

The CEO of General Growth Properties caused a firestorm late Tuesday when he made a passing reference during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call that Amazon was planning to open 300 to 400 bookstores. On Wednesday, the mall giant issued a very short statement that poured water on the fire.

“General Growth Properties CEO Sandeep Mathrani has indicated that a statement he made concerning Amazon during GGP's earnings conference call held on February 2, 2016, was not intended to represent Amazon's plans.”

Positive trends with its online business were not enough to help Kohl’s offset in-store weakness and intense competition, which pressured profits and caused a significant downward revision in guidance.

Kohl’s said its fourth quarter same-store sales increased 0.4% while the digital business grew 30%. Full year same store sales increase 0.7%.

L Brands raised its profit outlook for the year after reporting record sales in the fourth quarter.

For the fourth quarter ended Jan. 30, the company had net sales of $4.395 billion, an increase of 8% compared to $4.069 billion for the quarter ended Jan. 31, 2015. Same store sales increased 6%. Net sales for the year ended Jan. 30 were $12.154 billion, an increase of 6% compared to $11.454 billion for the year ended Jan. 31, 2015. Same store sales for the year ended Jan. 30 increased 5%.

It makes no sense for Amazon.com to open the type of physical bookstores it helped obliterate, not when the online giant already has the physical infrastructure in place to support a large scale rollout of another type of store in one of retail’s hottest sectors.

GameStop Corp. has entered into a partnership that will expand the retailer from selling video games to video-game publishing, the Dallas Business Journal reported. “As we’ve said many times before, GameStop will continue to invest in new and exciting innovation and strategic opportunities that will grow our video game business and deliver better and better entertainment experiences for our customers,” Mark Stanley, GameStop VP of strategic initiatives, said in the report.

For all their talk about the customer, most retailers have yet to evolve to a business model that is truly customer-centric.

That’s the conclusion of a new industry study by strategic consulting firm The O Alliance that was created in partnership with Revmetri.

Same-store sales at Costco were mostly flat in January across the globe, mirroring reports from other retailers reporting soft sales.

Rite Aid stockholders have voted to approve the proposed merger with Walgreens Boots Alliance, the Pennsylvania retailer announced Thursday morning.

Approximately 97% of the votes cast at today's special meeting of stockholders voted in favor of the adoption of the merger agreement, which represented approximately 74% of Rite Aid's total outstanding shares of common stock as of the Dec. 18, 2015 record date and constitutes a majority of the outstanding shares of Rite Aid common stock entitled to vote at the special meeting.