Corporate Governance

New York -- Macy's reported a profit for the third quarter that easily exceeded Wall Street, helped by stepped up marketing.

For the quarter ended Nov. 2, Macy's earned $177 million, up from $145 million a year ago.

Revenue rose 3% to $6.28 billion. Same-store sales increased 3.5%, beating the 2.1% rise analysts expected.

Sales trends improved in every region, and both the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s chains performed well, the retailer said.

New York -- Office Depot Inc. — the new entity created by the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax — named Roland Smith as CEO, effective immediately. Smith, 59, most recently served as CEO of Delhaize American, a division of Belgian grocery giant Delhaize Group. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of The Wendy's Co., holding company for the Wendy's chain.

New York -- Starbucks Coffee Company said it would pay Kraft Foods $2.79 billion to settle a dispute over the coffee-shop chain’s bagged-coffee business.

The payment, ordered by an arbitrator, consists of $2.23 billion in damages and $557 million in interest and attorneys’ fees. The company said it has adequate liquidity, both in the form of cash on hand and borrowing capacity, to fund the payment and will book it as a charge to its fiscal 2013 operating expenses.

By Justin Coward, managing director, mobile retail systems, VeriFone, ASPAC

A tepid economic climate and government shutdown weren’t enough to prevent Macy’s from producing a 3.5% third quarter same store sale increase and better than expected profits which prompted the department store operator to reiterate it full year financial forecast.

True Religion Apparel has appointed Mary Alderete as the company’s chief marketing officer. Alderete, who will report to CEO David Conn, will be charged with shaping the marketing strategy for True Religion across the company’s retail, wholesale, international and e-commerce platforms.

Ace Hardware reported somewhat mixed results for its third quarter with 8.9% growth in revenues compared to 2012, and profits that were essentially flat compared to the prior year quarter.

The hardware cooperative netted $1 billion in revenues for the quarter, an increase of $84.4 million over the same quarter in 2012.

Meanwhile, net income came in at $34.4 million, little changed since 2012's figure of $34.3 million.

Whirlpool has promoted Joseph Liotine to president of the company's U.S. operations and appointed him to the corporation's executive committee. Liotine is currently VP of marketing for the company's North American region.

Whirlpool has promoted Joseph Liotine to president of the company's U.S. operations and appointed him to the corporation's executive committee. Liotine is currently VP of marketing for the company's North American region.

O’Connor Capital Partners, a privately owned, independent real estate investment, development and management firm, has named Glenn J. Rufrano as chairman and CEO.

Rufrano was a founding partner of the O’Connor Group, the firm’s original incarnation, and has served on the board since 2010. He has also acquired a full partnership stake in the firm.