Target, Inc.

PLANO, Texas — Last week, RetailingToday.com reported that former Apple executive Ron Johnson would succeed Mike Ullman as CEO of JCPenney. Today, JCPenney announced that Ullman, who was originally slated to remain on the company's board of directors indefinitely, will now be leaving the company on Feb. 1, 2012.

The most recent Leading National Advertisers annual report from Advertising Age shows Target posted the biggest increased in ad spending in 2010 among conventional retailers. The total amount the company spent increased 12% to $1.508 billion compared with $1.246 billion the prior year. That put the company 18th on the Ad Age list of the nation’s 100 largest advertisers. Only two retailers spent more than Target.

MINNEAPOLIS — Target announced that an exclusive version of Beyoncé fourth solo album '“4” is now available for pre-order at Target.com/Beyonce and will be offered at Target stores nationwide and online beginning June 28. A digital version of the deluxe edition is available at Target.com. 

It was the biggest story in the retail world last week when JCPenney announced it had hired Ron Johnson as its new CEO with the incoming executive vowing to transform the way America shops by reinventing the department store. Such statements normally elicit a yawn because they are so common, but Johnson is the former SVP retail at Apple and spent the past 11 years overseeing the development and growth of the company’s wildly successful and widely heralded retail operation.

Allegations of illegality and intimidation are par for the course whenever union organizers lose an election, so it should have come as no surprise when workers at a Target in Valley Stream, N.Y. voted against unionization.

The National Labor Relation Board announced this past weekend that 137 workers voted against joining the United Food and Commercial Workers union while 85 workers supported the union. Had the drive been successful it would have been the first time workers at any of Target’s store were represented by a collective bargaining agreement.

Tukwila, Wash. -- Jacksonville, Fla.-based Regency Centers said it has leased retail space in Tukwila, Wash., at Southcenter Plaza to Jos. A. Bank.

Jos. A. Bank has leased 4,075 sq. ft., bringing the center to 97% leased, and is currently open for business.

The 170,000-sq.-ft. shopping center is anchored by a 112,000-sq.-ft. Target alongside national retailers such as Performance Bicycle, Super Cuts, Starbucks, Burger King and Quiznos.
 

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.