Corporate Governance

Alpharetta, Ga. -- McAlister's Deli has partnered with several lenders for franchise expansion nationwide. First Franchise Capital, Balboa Capital and Franchise America Finance have committed to financing new construction and remodels, as well as POS upgrades and equipment.

In 2014, McAlister's will celebrate its 25th anniversary and expects to open 25 new restaurants in new and existing markets, including in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Virginia and Florida, among others.

Matthews, N.C. - Family Dollar Stores Inc. has named Brian D. Hancock to the position of senior VP supply chain. Hancock will report to Howard R. Levine, chairman and CEO.

More than 360 select Loblaw banner stores across Canada nabbed the world record for the most wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese cracked simultaneously, as declared by a Guinness World Records adjudicator. Officially, 1,008 wheels were cracked in more than 360 Loblaw banner stores simultaneously across Canada.

The Hilco Global Retail Group is rebranding its recently acquired Steele's retail stores as Steele's & Deals. The company also appointed several key executive leaders who will take over new management roles at the retail chain.

The company feels that the Steele's & Deals name more accurately communicates value to customers.

Family Dollar has named Brian D. Hancock as SVP of supply chain, reporting to chairman and CEO Howard R. Levine.

Kayser-Roth Corporation received three awards from Walmart: Supplier of the Year for overall outstanding performance and partnership in 2013, Overall Apparel Supplier of the Year and the Made in the USA Supplier of the Year Award, Apparel, for its No nonsense brand.

The awards were presented at Walmart's annual Vendor Summit in Orlando, Fla.

American Eagle has had a rough winter. Robert Hanson resigned as the company’s CEO following disappointing holiday sales, and severe winter weather contributed to weak fourth-quarter results.

Interim CEO Jay Schottenstein looked on the bright side as shares dropped nearly 7%, saying that the company was taking steps to bring greater focus and excitement to its product offering and better engage its core customers.

Americans’ may desire healthy, organic and locally grown foods, but their enduring love of candy propelled the confectionary industry to record setting sales in 2013 and more of the same is forecast for this year.

I Love Velvet, a leading provider of end-to-end, secure, mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) solutions, is now a member of the Samsung Solutions Exchange. The Samsung Solutions Exchange addresses the needs of line of business owners by creating holistic mobile solutions on a robust portfolio of enterprise-grade Samsung Mobile devices.

Coupled with Samsung Mobile devices, the I Love Velvet mobile point-of-sale solution offers three major components: Velvet mPOS hardware, Velvet store and Velvet cloud.

As the retail industry begins to offer shoppers the omnichannel experience they demand, brick-and-mortar stores have never been more important.

This is especially true as it relates to power centers, broadly defined as open-air shopping centers that feature multiple national anchors such as discount department stores, off-price stores, warehouse clubs and other retailers that tend to offer a wide selection in a particular merchandise category at value prices.