Corporate Governance

JLL has entered into an agreement to acquire Big Red Rooster, a brand experience and retail design services company based in Columbus, Ohio.

The acquisition, expected to close in January 2016, will expand JLL’s project management and design services with dedicated brand experience and design experts who can serve a broad mix of retail, food service, grocery and healthcare companies across the United States.

Big Red Rooster counts Under Armour, FedEx, T-Mobile, American Express and Nationwide Children’s Hospital among its clients.

Don’t be fooled by Costco’s tepid sales growth and first quarter profit decline. The company is accelerating expansion and pursuing some intriguing digital partnerships while members continue to renew at record rates.

Consumer packaged goods companies eager to keep pace with shoppers’ desire for product ingredient transparency have embraced a major initiative branded as SmartLabel.

SmartLabel is the name given to an initiative spearheaded by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) that is designed to give consumers easy access to detailed information on ingredients and hundreds of other product attributes, such as whether food items contain ingredients from genetically modified sources.

ICSC’s 2015 New York National Conference & Deal Making show is on track to set an attendance record, with approximately 10,000 dealmakers estimated at the event, outstripping the previous peak of 9,600 attendees set in 2014 and spurring the event’s planners to explore options for adding space in future years.

Retailers that think they have digital security under control may want to take a second look at their protocols.

According to a new study from risk predictive analytics firm Bay Dynamics, "The Pre-Holiday Retail Risk Report," a significant amount of retailers assign the same login credentials to employees and do not know if employees have leaked sensitive data.

Despite these common gaps, a majority of 125 retail IT decision-makers surveyed said they have full confidence that their sensitive information is sufficiently protected.

The Children’s Place blamed unseasonably warm weather for its weak third quarter results and plans to close 200 stores by 2017 as part of its turnaround strategy.

For the third quarter ended Oct. 31, the retailer said same store sales fell 3%. The Children’s Place reported a profit of $38.5 million, or $1.88 a share, compared with a profit of $36.9 million, or $1.70 a share, in the prior year quarter. EPS was $1.93, up from $1.82. Sales rose 6.4% to $455.9 million.

In October, Walgreens announced plans to acquire Rite Aid in a deal that had been widely anticipated. The deal is most certainly going to reshape the retail market by creating a drug store giant with nearly 13,000 stores in the United States; as well, it foretells of the significant changes occurring in the healthcare market.

AutoZone says inventory efficiency improvements allowed the retailer to increase sales and profit in the first quarter.

For the period ended Nov. 21, net sales were $2.4 billion, an increase of 5.6% from the prior year quarter. Same-store sales increased 3.5% for the quarter. Net income for the quarter increased 8.3% over the same period last year to $258.1 million, while diluted earnings per share increased 14% to $8.29 per share from $7.27 per share in the year-ago quarter.