Financial/Banking

Newell Rubbermaid’s EVP and CFO Doug Martin has resigned from the company effective August 31, to be EVP and CFO at Spectrum Brands, effective September 1.

Newell Rubbermaid has retained Spencer Stuart to help the company search for a new CFO. While that search is underway, John Stipancich, the company's EVP, general counsel, corporate secretary and EMEA leader, has been tapped as interim financial chief.

Plano, Texas -- J.C. Penney answered Wall Street questions about whether or not the struggling department store retailer could stage a comeback — by posting better-than-expected profit and revenue in the second quarter.

Brampton, Canada – Loblaw Companies Ltd. has named Pavi Binning as a director to its board. Binning currently serves as the president of food processing company George Weston Ltd. and has been a director of George Weston Ltd. since 2012.

Menomonee Falls, Wis. – Kohl’s Corp. had a relatively flat second quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to the same period the previous year. Net income slightly rose to $232 million from $231 million, while sales fell 1% to $4.24 billion from $4.28 billion.

Same-store sales dropped 1.1%, although Kohl’s said they turned positive in July. Kohl’s plans to open four new stores in fall 2014, including one store which was temporarily closed in the first quarter for a complete re-build.

Dallas – Net loss at specialty jewelry retailer DSGE Inc. roughly tripled to $4.45 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 from $1.12 million in the same period a year earlier. Writeoffs related to the closure of DSGE’s Southern Bullion banner drove the net loss increase.

BitPay, a payment service provider (PSP) specializing in e-commerce, B2B and enterprise solutions for the bitcoin digital currency, has expanded its San Francisco office with several new hires.

The company has named Sonny Singh as its chief commercial officer to oversee all sales operations. With more than 15 years of experience in helping to grow tech companies, Singh will be responsible for increasing BitPay’s customer base of more than 40,000 merchants.
 

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.

Roanoke, Va. -- Advance Auto Parts beat Wall Street projections with a 19% profit increase in the second quarter – from $116.9 million last year to $139.5 million.

The acquisition of General Parts drove sales up 52%, to $2.35 billion, from $1.55 billion in the same quarter last year. Wall Street anticipated $2.32 billion.

"We remain on pace against our base business expectations, integration milestones and with our financial performance,” said Advance CEO Darren Jackson.