Events

New York City -- Borders Group has reached agreements with its landlords to extend the leases on 11 stores it had previously asked a bankruptucy court to shutter, the Associated Press reported.

Last week, the chain asked permission to start liquidating 51 stores because of a condition for its financing. But it said at the time it was actively working to keep them open.

Washington, D.C.  -- Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas were identified as the cities most problematic with regard to organized retail crime (ORC) rings, according to the National Retail Federation’s seventh annual Organized Retail Crime survey. Of the 129 retail companies, 94.5% reported having been the victim of organized retail crime in the past 12 months, up 6% over last year.

The cities most problematic for ORC rings were:

Washington, D.C. -- Organized retail crime should not be an issue solely addressed at the store level, according to the results of the National Retail Federation’s seventh annual Organized Retail Crime survey. More than half of retailers (49.6%) say they have been a victim of cargo theft in the past 12 months.

Houston -- Men's Wearhouse announced Wednesday that Douglas S. Ewert has officially succeeded founder George Zimmer as the company’s president and CEO.

The announcement was made at the retailer’s Annual Shareholder Meeting. As previously announced, Zimmer will continue as executive chairman of the board of directors.

Walmart Canada president and CEO David Cheesewright is scheduled to speak next week at the Jefferies 2011 Global Consumer Conference near Boston. Walmart doesn’t typically push country presidents on stage at investor conferences except at its own analysts’ meetings when it has hosted events overseas in such places as China earlier this year or prior years in Brazil and the United Kingdom. However there are some interesting things going on in Canada these days, and the Jefferies event is an opportunity for Walmart to showcase some of its management talent.

Washington, D.C. -- A report released Thursday by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates said that import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to remain at about the same levels as last year through July before starting to resume increases later this summer.

Walmart executive were said to be among a group of major retailers who met with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday to discuss the elimination of the city’s “food deserts,” essentially areas where roughly 450,000 residents don’t have convenient access to fresh food.

According to an AP report, representatives from Walmart, Walgreen, Aldi and three other chains who were not identified met with Emanuel who reportedly showed a detailed map of the city’s food deserts and made an appeal for projects in specific areas.

Alexandria, Va. -- A poll from the Society of Human Resource Management, released Thursday, showed that the number of U.S. organizations with a formal succession plan in place decreased during the past five years from 29% in 2006 to 23% in 2011.

While less than a quarter of businesses have a formal plan in place, the numbers improve when informal plans are considered. More than one-third, or 38%, of human resources professionals said their organization currently has an informal succession plan or process in place (up from 29% in 2006).