Corporate Governance

Pittsburgh -- Dick’s Sporting Goods said Monday that it will open three new stores in three states on March 7.

A new store in St. George, Utah, will open simultaneously with new locations in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and Boardman, Ohio. Giveaways and special events will accompany each opening.

The St. George, Utah, store, the retailer’s third in the state, is located at Red Rock Commons shopping center. The Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., store joins 17 other Dick’s stores in the state and will be located at the Regions Bank Plaza.

Jacksonville, Fla. -- Stein Mart said Monday it will open three new stores on March 15, located in Irvine, Calif.; Suwanee, Ga.; and Sunset Hills, Mo.

The Irvine store is a relocation of another Irvine location. The two new and one relocated store bring Stein Mart’s total store count to 264.

“We are pleased to announce the expansion of our footprint in these three existing markets,” said Jay Stein, interim CEO.

Sioux Falls, S.D. -- Verizon Wireless services retailer Z Wireless, which operates 12 stores throughout Kansas, on Monday announced the acquisition of T2 Wireless, another Verizon retailer which operates more than a hundred stores in the Great Plains.

Atlantic Street Capital, a private equity firm investing in the lower middle market, acquired Z Wireless in 2011.

Northridge, Calif. -- Two new restaurants will join the tenant lineup at Northridge Fashion Center, located in Northride, Calif. The center will also add an outdoor amphitheater.

Scheduled to open late in fall 2012, Yard House and Elephant Bar will join the center's restaurant row, which already features California Pizza Kitchen, Wood Ranch BBQ & Grill, Claim Jumper and Romano's Macaroni Grill.

Camp Hill, Pa. — In the wake of tornadoes that hit communities in Kentucky on Friday, retail pharmacy chain Rite Aid has donated to a local Red Cross chapter to assist victims.

The company said Sunday that the Rite Aid Foundation, its philanthropic arm, had donated $15,000 to the Bluegrass chapter of the American Red Cross. The foundation also will provide supplies and items to assist with disaster relief efforts. Eli Lilly Foundation also pledged to donate $100,000 to the Red Cross.

New York — Stop & Shop announced that its New England and New York Metro divisions and its customers were able to give back more than $22 million in 2011 into the hundreds of communities in which they operate.

Deerfield, Ill. — Higher front-end sales for the month of February helped counter-balance lost revenue from Express Scripts prescriptions, Walgreeens reported Monday. Overall, the drug store chain reported a 1.5% sales increase to $5.9 billion.

Shares of Walgreens were up slightly by 8 cents to $32.77 in early morning trading.

Washington, D.C. — Two bills designed to protect "covered critical infrastructure" against cyber attacks by terrorists and others should remain focused on their key purpose and not be expanded to include data breach legislation or broad new privacy regimes, the National Retail Federation said.

The Center for Retail Excellence at the University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business is scheduled to hold its second annual SHOP conference on May 1 with Walmart’s head of global consumer insights recently confirmed as a guest speaker.

Under normal circumstances a dividend increase of 9% would be regarded as pretty solid, but Walmart has spoiled its investors in recent years, so when it boosted its annual dividend to $1.59 from $1.46 this week the increase was viewed as puny.