Corporate Governance

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. - Ikea hasa proposed plans for a possible store in the city of Memphis, Tennessee that could increase the Swedish retailer’s presence in the Southeastern United States as its first store in the state.    The potential store could open as early as fall 2016 and is contingent upon receiving all governmental approvals.  

TGI Fridays has been getting a lot of attention for its holiday “Mobile Mistletoe” promotion, and not all of it has been for the right reasons. While Mobile Mistletoe is a great concept in omnichannel marketing and customer engagement, some flaws in the actual execution suggest TGI Fridays should have spent more time refining it before launch.  

Sunnyvale, Calif. -  Fujitsu has launched its next-generation tablets - Fujitsu Stylistic Q555 and the Fujitsu Stylistic Q335. The Stylistic Q555 is a two-in-one, 10-inch semi-rugged tablet with enterprise-grade security and network integration, while the Stylistic Q335 is an eight-inch Windows tablet designed for enhanced portability.    Features of the Stylistic Q555 include:  

Ann Arbor, Mich. - Domino's Pizza has selected and implemented AMTdirect to manage its corporate real estate portfolio. The cloud platform has allowed Domino's to centralize real estate information and track revenue, sales and expenses across locations.   

Seattle – Top executives of Starbucks Corp., including chairman, president and CEO Howard Schultz, reportedly sold a combined total of 448,320 company shares for about $37.54 million, an average of $83.74 each, on Dec. 9 and 10, 2014. According to Barrons.com, Schultz exercised options and sold shares for a total of $28.95 million, and also gifted 175,000 shares, leaving him holding about 16.78 million shares.  

Minneapolis – Target Corp. is aiming last-minute holiday promotions at users of its Cartwheel mobile savings app and customers in need of product delivery or pickup. Cartwheel is offering users 50% off a different toy every day until Dec. 24.   

Fort Worth, Texas – Struggling consumer electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. has named Carlin Adrianopoli, a consultant with strategic advisory and interim management services firm FTI Consulting, as its new interim CFO. Adrianopoli replaces Alix Partners managing director Holly Etlin, who was named interim CFO in September 2014 to replace previous CFO John Feray after he resigned.  

Brown Shoe Co. has sold its Shoes.com online division to a Seattle company looking to compete in a market dominated by Amazon.com and Foot Locker.

SHOEme, parent of OnlineShoes.com and Shoeme.ca, is purchasing Shoes.com for an undisclosed price, the companies said.

Fast-growing payments startup Adyen has secured $250 million from investors who have valued the Amsterdam-based startup at $1.5 billion.

Adyen serves as a middleman for Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb and other merchants, enabling them to accept Visa, MasterCard and soon bitcoin in nearly 200 currencies worldwide.

The eight-year-old company allows merchants to accept payments on the Web, mobile and more recently at individual points of sale.

VeriFone and First Data are teaming up to help U.S. merchants reduce their exposure to data breaches and expedite merchant acceptance of EMV-enabled credit and debit cards.

Large-scale theft of consumer payment data from merchants’ integrated point-of-sale (POS) systems is among the biggest challenges facing the payments industry.