Corporate Governance

Vancouver – E-commerce company Elastic Path Software Inc. has secured $5.88 million in equity investments led by BDC Venture Capital IT Fund, with participation from Yaletown Venture Partners and individual investors. The company will use the funds to support development for its patent-pending enterprise commerce products.

Goodlettsville, Tenn. – Dollar General Corp. is upping the ante in its $9.1 billion bid to purchase Family Dollar Inc. by making a hostile takeover offer to Family Dollar stockholders of $80 per share. This offer beats the $74.50 per share, $8.5 billion offer Family Dollar has accepted from Dollar Tree Inc, and is a 32% premium over the closing price of $60.66 for Family Dollar stock on Sept. 9.
 

Stein Mart plans to open six new stores this fall just in time for Christmas. The store openings are part of the company’s 2014 store expansion plan, which includes nine new locations, strategically selected in key growth markets, and seven relocations.

The openings will bring the company's total nationwide store count to more than 270.

Since Family Dollar’s board of directors unanimously rejected Dollar General’s second and sweetened tender offer from Sept. 2, Dollar General has decided to make the tender offer directly to the company’s shareholders.

The company’s all-cash offer of $80 per share beats Dollar Tree’s offer of $74.50 per share cash/stock offer originally made July 28. The Family Dollar board has rejected both Dollar General’s offers on the basis of antitrust regulatory considerations.

CVS Health has named Mary Langowski EVP for strategy, policy and market development, effective Oct. 14.

Langowski will join CVS Health from international law firm DLA Piper where she serves as the chair of the Health Care Policy and Regulatory Practice and the co-chair of the Food and Beverage Sector.

Starboard Value CEO and chief investment officer Jeffrey Smith has resigned from the Office Depot board, effective immediately. The company’s nominating and governance committee plans to start a search for a replacement.

This year, Nestlé Toll House is celebrating its Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsel’s 75th birthday.

Nestlé credits Ruth Wakefield Toll House with inventing chocolate chips. Wakefield ran the Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts. She broke a bar of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate into tiny pieces and added them to dough expecting to create a chocolate cookie. Instead, the semi-sweet pieces held their shape and softened to a creamy texture. Wakefield's "Toll House Crunch Cookie" recipe was published in a Boston newspaper.

Target is integrating with the new Apple Pay mobile payments service so shoppers can pay using the Target app from iOS.

GameStop has teamed up with Alliance Data Systems Corporation (ADS), a leading global data-driven marketing and loyalty programs provider, to deploy a GameStop-branded private label credit card program.

Chico’s FAS has enlisted Borderfree — a leading operator of an international technology and services platform — to help the omnichannel specialty retailer expand its e-commerce capabilities globally.

As a result of the partnership, the retailer will now be able to transact with shoppers in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide in more than 60 global currencies.