Corporate Governance

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Office Depot announced that the company’s global headquarters, located in Boca Raton, Fla., has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Energy Star certification. The certification signifies that the building performs in the top 25% of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency and meets strict energy efficiency performance levels set by the EPA, Office Depot reported.

BURBANK, Calif. — Former chairman, president and CEO of Procter & Gamble, A.G. Lafley, has joined Legendary Entertainment’s board of directors.

Lafley joins a board comprising Legendary's chairman and CEO Thomas Tull, as well as Jim Breyer, Larry Clark, Dick Cook and Joe Roth.

Legendary Entertainment is a media company with film (Legendary Pictures), television (Legendary Television) and comics (Legendary Comics) divisions.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Fresh & Easy will kick off its annual in-store holiday food drive across all of its stores next month in honor of National Food Bank Week.

From mid-November trough Dec. 31, customers can donate canned and boxed goods in specially designated boxes at Fresh & Easy stores in Arizona, California and Nevada.

Last holiday season, the retailer and its customers donated more than $1 million in food to local food banks and charities.

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores is cutting back healthcare coverage for new part-time workers and significantly raising premiums for many new full-time associates, the New York Times reported. It is a major turnaround for the retailer which, a few years back, under heavy criticism that many of its 1.4 million workers could not afford or did not qualify for coverage, expanded coverage for employees and their families.

NEW YORK — Barnes & Noble has announced that Joseph Lombardi, CFO, has resigned from his current position, but will remain a non-officer employee until mid-2012 to assist in the transition as the company undertakes an executive search for a new CFO. The company also announced the appointment of Allen Lindstrom, VP corporate controller, to interim CFO until a replacement is named. 

Toronto -- Joe Fresh, the Canadian value-priced apparel brand, has opened its first permanent U.S. store, in Bridgewater Mall, Bridgewater, N.J., and another in Roosevelt Field Mall, Garden City, N.Y. The company will make its New York City debut, in Manhattan’s Flat Iron District, on Nov.3. A second store will open in spring, on Fifth Ave.

In addition, the retailer is opening two Joe Fresh Holiday Fashion pop-up stores in Manhattan. (This past summer, the brand operated a summer pop-up in East Hampton, N.Y.)

New York City -- British fashion retailer L.K.Bennett, opened its third U.S. boutique, at The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack, N. J.

“We have over 100 stores in the UK. now — and in the long term weʼd like to have the same number of stores in the U.S.,” said Robert Bensoussan, CEO London.

New York City -- Barnes & Noble said its CFO Joseph Lombardi has resigned and the company is starting a search to replace him. Lombardi will stay on with the company until mid-2012 to assist in the transition as the company undertakes an executive search for a new CFO.

Corporate controller Allen Lindstrom will take over CFO duties until a replacement is named.
 

Boca Raton, Fla. -- Office Depot’s global headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star certification. The certification signifies that the building performs in the top 25% of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency and meets strict energy efficiency performance levels set by the EPA.

New York City -- Saks plans to close its 20,000-sq.-ft. Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th store in Triangle Factory Outlets in Morrisville, N.C., (metropolitan Raleigh) by Jan. 1.

The company opened a 30,000-sq.-ft. Off 5th location in Tanger Outlet Center of the Piedmont in nearby Mebane, N.C., in 2010, which will serve as a replacement store for the closing location. The new Mebane store was designed in the chain’s loft” format that debuted in 2008 and which redefined and elevated the outlet shopping experience.