Corporate Governance

DENVER — Things may not be working out for Tim Tebow as a Jets quarterback, but he’s got something to fall back on. His foundation has entered into a third-year, multifaceted agreement with national furniture retailer Furniture Row Companies.

New York -- Delhaize Group announced that it would close 33 under-performing Sweetbay stores in Florida by mid-February. The shutterings, which are part of a broader reorganization plan, amount to about one-third of the chain.

“While these decisions are difficult, especially given the impact on our associates, customers and communities, these actions will continue to enhance the performance of our overall store portfolio and further enable us to deliver profitable growth and accelerate shareholder value,” the company said in a statement.

San Francisco -- Williams-Sonoma reported that its revenue increased 4.8% to $1.01 billion for the nine-week period ended Dec.30.The company also backed its fourth-quarter and full-year forecast.

Williams-Sonoma will discuss its performance in more detail in March when it releases its fourth quarter results.

Company president and CEO Laura Alber said the chain's performance reflected the strength of its brands even amid a time of consumer uncertainty and intense promotional activity across the retail industry.

Naperville, Ill. — OfficeMax is joining forces with Go Daddy, a leading web-hosting and domain name provider.

OfficeMax's exclusive bundles of Go Daddy website services will allow businesses to register their domain names, create professional websites and maximize their business visibility on Internet search engines. There are no monthly service fees. One-year service bundles range from simple domain and website authentication to hosting an online store.

Carlisle, Pa. — Ahold banner Giant Food Stores is opening a cheese and specialty food store in central Pennsylvania, the supermarket chain said.

Giant — also known as Giant-Carlisle to distinguish it from fellow Ahold chain Giant Foods of Landover, Md. — said it had a deal with Philadelphia-based Di Bruno Bros. to open the store inside the Giant Super Food Store in Camp Hill, Pa. The new store-within-a-store will open on Jan. 24.

Philadelphia — Specialty value retailer Five Below's fourth quarter total sales for the period from October 28, 2012 through January 12, 2013 increased 34% to $158.5 million, while comparable store sales for the same period increased 4.2%.
 
Five Below has proposed a secondary offering of 7,000,000 shares of its common stock, amid reports that sales are not as bad as originally feared.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Leading global workwear maker Dickies has announced plans to expand its occupational wear division’s product offerings as well as their geographical availability.

Beginning this month, Dickies will have head-to-toe uniform apparel for men, women and juniors in the food service, hospitality and healthcare industries. Dickies' occupational wear division, which   provides uniform apparel for customers in the United States, will now provide them for customers across Canada. 

ISELIN, N.J. — The American Diabetes Association has made Domino Foods, maker of Domino Light and C&H Light All Natural Sugar and Stevia blends, its national strategic partner.

TAMPA, Fla. — Sterling Payment Technologies, a leading national payment processor, has appointed Jeffrey Akeson to executive director of third party/ISO sales.  

Sterling Payment Technologies is a customer-focused payment processor which provides merchants with a complete range of electronic payment services, including credit, debit, PIN debit, fleet, gift card and proprietary rewards and loyalty programs. The company combines POS technology and value-added merchant solutions.

BELLEVUE, Wash. – Former Microsoft executive James S. Pinckney has joined Coinstar as its new corporate leader of strategy and operations, a newly created position.

The move comes a week and a half after the provider of automated retail solutions named J. Scott Di Valerio as its new CEO.

Pinckney has more than 25 years of international general management, strategy and sales experience from Lenovo, Microsoft Corp., The Sabre Group and Hitachi Data Systems Corp.