Events

Heading into last Friday’s annual meeting, the financial community had high expectations Walmart would allocate additional funds to buy back stock, and the company didn’t disappoint. The $15 billion share repurchase authorization CFO Charles Holley announced replaced an existing $15 billion program approved one year earlier that had dwindled to just $2 billion due to the fact that Walmart was an aggressive purchaser of its own stock during the past 12 months.

A lot of companies are content to conduct their annual meetings in a hotel ballroom near their headquarters, but not Target. This year the retailer and its senior executives are schlepping east to Pittsburgh where the company’s annual meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 8 at 1:30 p.m. at a store located about five miles east of downtown Pittsburgh at 6231 Penn Avenue. According to the company, “This location allows us to showcase our current general merchandise store design in the latter stages of construction prior to opening.”

It’s the time of year when retailers engage in the annual Dads and Grads promotional extravaganza, and Target is promoting the Apple iPad at $499 as a gift-giving solution.

The iPad appeared on a full-page ad in this week’s circular along with other Apple products such as the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch.

Not that dads and grads wouldn’t want an iPad, and it never hurts to feature an item that shoppers can aspire to, but the iPad would appear to be out of the price range of most gift-givers, especially where Father’s Day is concerned.

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- Borders Group executive VP and chief merchandising officer Michele Cloutier has resigned, Borders said in a late afternoon Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

It is the latest in a string of high-level departures from the bookseller as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

On Thursday, the company received a deadline extension until mid-October to file a plan to restructure. An attorney for Borders said parts of the company could be sold in as quickly as two weeks.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — After nearly four hours of music, cheering, celebrity appearances and brief presentations by senior executives, Wal-Mart Stores president and CEO Mike Duke wrapped up the company’s annual shareholders’ extravaganza Friday morning by sharing five priorities associated with serving what he called the next generation of customers.

Albany, N.Y. -- Cabela’s has retained Media Logic, a nationally recognized agency specializing in marketing for a social world, to support the company’s recently launched 50th anniversary promotion with ongoing and sustained communications over social media.

Media Logic will leverage Facebook as the primary social network to add excitement and urgency to Cabela’s year-long promotion, “50 Years, 50 Trucks.”

Given all the talk of EDLP at Walmart’s annual shareholders’ meeting, it was understandable the company chose Maki Nakamura, chief merchandising officer at Walmart Japan, as the recipient of the Sam M. Walton Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Walmart’s Seiyu stores in Japan have been implementing every day low prices for several years, and the company’s patience has finally paid off with improved business results in what has been a challenging market.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores's board of directors has approved a new program authorizing the company to repurchase $15 billion of its shares, the company announced at its 41st annual meeting of shareholders Friday. This program replaces the previous $15 billion program, announced on June 4, 2010, that had approximately $2 billion of remaining authorization. Under the program, repurchased shares are constructively retired and returned to unissued status.