Retail

Atlanta – The Home Depot has acquired Houston-based window coverings retailer Blinds.com. As The Home Depot continues to implement its interconnected retail strategy, the company will work with Blinds.com to expand its technology into Homedepot.com and the company's stores with the goal of improving the entire end-to-end buying process for window coverings.

The Blinds.com management team and staff will remain intact at its headquarters in Houston. The acquisition closed Jan. 23 and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

New York — Le Pain Quotidien has leased a 3,100-sq.-ft. retail location at 1006 First Avenue, on the northeast corner of East 55th Street. A former Chase Bank location, the site offers 65 ft. of frontage set slightly above street level, allowing for excellent visibility and signage.

Le Pain Quotidien, an organic bakery and communal table restaurant, has more than 200 locations on five continents.

Toronto -- The HBC Department Store Group announced the launch of a new mobile shopping application for both its Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor divisions that allows customers to instantly buy products seen in print by simply scanning an image.

HBC is partnering with Pounce, a mobile app that turns static print ads into instant digital storefronts by enabling customers to scan product images and complete a purchase in less than 30 seconds. It provides a secure, one-tap checkout, integrating with the retailer’s existing e-commerce system

The Walmart Foundation’s Colorado State Giving Program has awarded $321,000 to eight Colorado nonprofits that are helping to fund local programs to improve education, women’s economic empowerment, healthy eating and fighting hunger.

The organizations include We Don’t Waste, Lapuente Home, Care and Share, Kids Aid, Project Angel Heart, Women’s Resource Agency, Broadway Assistance Center and Discover Goodwill of Southern and Western Colorado.

Haier America president and CEO Shariff Kan has stepped down and will be replaced by Adrian Micu, effective Feb. 10, according to the company.

Micu comes to Haier with more than 25 years of executive-level engineering, technology and product development experience within the appliance industry. Most recently, he held the position of VP engineering with Whirlpool Corporation.

Downers Grove, Ill. – The board of directors of FTD Companies, Inc. has appointed Michael Silverstein as a director of the company, effective Jan. 21, 2014. Silverstein will serve as a class I director with a term expiring at the company's 2014 annual meeting of stockholders.

Walmart’s health and wellness president John Agwunobi shared wide-ranging thoughts earlier this week regarding the state of health care in America and ways in which the evolving marketplace is impacting Walmart customers.
 

New York – Hedge fund Litespeed Management has purchased about 8.1 million shares, or an 8.1% stake, in RadioShack. Litespeed, founded by Jamie Zimmerman in 2000, specializes in investing in troubled companies that have viable businesses.

Litespeed disclosed the purchase in an SEC filing. The filing does not specify purchase price, but analysts have estimated the company probably did not spend more than roughly $17 million on the investment.