Dollar General Corp.

Dollar General bid $78.50 for Family Dollar Monday morning in a $9.7 billion deal that exceeds the $74.50 a share Dollar Tree offered for Family Dollar on July 28.

The deal would create a small format powerhouse with nearly 20,000 stores in 46 states and sales of more than $28 billion.

Goodlettsville, Tenn. - Paula A. Price, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and former CFO of Ahold USA, has been named to the Dollar General board of directors effective Aug. 26. The election of Price to Dollar General’s board will bring the total number of directors to eight.

Former Ahold and CVS executive Paula Price is the newest member of the Dollar General board of directors.

She joins the board of the 11,500 store retailer at a pivotal time. Dollar General is in the midst of a search for a top executive to succeed Rick Dreiling who has indicated he will step down next year and two of the company’s arch rivals, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, have announced plans to merge.

Christopher & Banks has appointed former National Stores executive Lynn C. Derry as SVP and general merchandise manager.

A new digital coupon program was successfully rolled out to Dollar General’s more than 11,300 stores in partnership with Coupons.com, the companies announced.

Matthews, N.C. – Activist investor Carl Icahn, who had been pressuring Family Dollar to sell the company, has reduced his ownership stake in the company from 9.39% to 6.09%.

There have been more than a few headline-grabbing leadership transitions in the retail world recently. And, to be honest, “transitions” might be too gentle of a euphemism: some big names from some big-name brands have left, been fired, forced out, voted off the board, or otherwise pressured to step down in the last few months.

New York -- The heat is on — in more ways than one. While Target’s search for a new chief executive has been much in the news, the discounter is not the only big retailer on the hunt for a chief executive. Here’s a brief review (all dates are 2014 except where noted):

The Rick Dreiling era is coming to an end at Dollar General as the chairman and CEO announced plans to retire next year, initiating a search internally and externally for a successor.

Goodlettsville, Tenn. — Dollar General plans to expand its nationwide presence into three new states within the next year, increasing the company’s presence to 43 states across the country. The discount retailer will begin construction on stores in Maine and Rhode Island in fall 2014, with plans to expand into Oregon in early 2015.