Corporate Governance

BJ's Charitable Foundation has donated 70 grants totaling $431,000 to several nonprofit organizations whose goals are to help improve the lives of local residents in the areas surrounding BJ's Wholesale Clubs.

The funds will go toward healthcare, education, hunger prevention and self-sufficiency.

Cambridge, Mass. – Retail visual merchandising solution provider RBM Technologies has named E.Y. Snowden its new president and CEO. Snowden was previously CEO of Boston Communications Group and president of APC/Sprint Spectrum.

In addition, RBM has closed a $9.5 million round of growth equity financing led by Spring Lake Equity Partners. RBM plans to use the financing to enhance its products and enter the international mobile market and new retail verticals.

Washington, D.C. – In a statement submitted to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on April 8, the National Retail Federation (NRF) urged Congress to address what it sees as an increasing threat to retailers: patent trolls. Patent trolls are entities that purchase overly-broad patents with the sole intent of suing retailers and other end-users of technology that allegedly infringe on those patents.

Fort Myers, Fla. — Sanibel Beach Place, a 72,886-sq.-ft. Publix-anchored shopping center in Fort Myers, Fla., has selected RMC Property Group as the property’s exclusive leasing agent.

Global Realty and Management owns the property.

Atlanta -- PGA Tour Superstores announced three new store openings in 2014 and an ambitious growth strategy that will more than double its current retail footprint,  adding one million square feet of new golf retail space over the next five years.

As part of its growth plan, the mega-golf retailer will open new interactive retail experience stores this fall in Orlando, Florida; North Scottsdale, Arizona; and Southlake, Texas.

Minneapolis — Twin Cities’ fashion retailer “Len” has renewed its lease at Minneapolis City Center with a seven-year commitment. The existing 7,196-sq.-ft. store is the retailer’s only downtown location following the consolidation of several brands and stores over the last six months. The chain operates five more locations in Minnesota and one in Illinois.

Minneapolis City Center is the two-story retail portion of a 1.6 million mixed-use property owned by Shorenstein Properties LLC.

Rakuten has teamed up with First Bankcard to launch the Rakuten Rewards MasterCard Program, which provides cardholders with reward points for using their credit card to shop on Rakuten.com and elsewhere.  

Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, is Rakuten's U.S. marketplace, offering consumers more than 17 million products at everyday low prices from a network of small and large business shop owners.

Oxford, U.K. -- Vuzix Corp., a U.K.-based supplier of video eyewear and smart glasses products, and Vision Smarts, a Belgian company that develops, distributes and supports software libraries for image recognition and real-time video analysis, have created a custom built-version of the “pic2shop” application specifically for use with the M100 Smart Glasses.