Apparel

Plano, Texas – Myron Ullman, CEO of embattled department store chain J.C. Penney, has reportedly bought $1 million of company stock. According to the Associated Press, Ullman purchased 112,000 shares at $8.95 apiece on or around Nov. 22.

Los Angeles – A majority of the 348,235 tweets about Black Friday posted between Friday, Nov. 22 and Sunday, Nov. 24 were either positive or neutral in sentiment. According to analysis from social media research firm Fizziology, tweets about Black Sunday the weekend of Nov. 22-24 were 47% positive, 11% negative, 3% mixed and 39% neutral (from retailers/promotions).

Fremont, Calif. -- Men's Wearhouse has turned the tables on Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, with a proposal to acquire its one-time suitor for approximately $1.54 billion. Men's Wearhouse is offering $55 per share for Jos. A. Bank, which represents nearly a 9% premium to the company's $50.32 Monday closing price.

Jos. A. Bank made an unsolicited $2.3 billion bid in early October for Men’s Wearhouse, which rejected the offer, calling "opportunistic" and "inadequate."

New York — European Wax Center has signed a lease for 1,650 sq. ft. of ground floor retail space at 95 Chambers Street/75 Reade Street between Broadway and Church in Tribeca, according to Winick Realty Group, the broker representing both the retailer and the landlord, Ascend Group, in the transaction.  

Winick also represented Reade Street Prep in a lease transaction for a 3,600-sq.-ft. expansion space on the 75 Reade Street side of the building.

Deerfield Beach, Fla. — Konover South has bought back a portfolio of nine Florida retail shopping centers valued at more than $100 million. Konover had previously sold a share of the portfolio to an institutional investment partner. The buy-back returns complete ownership to Konover, which developed or redeveloped the properties over the years.

Peoples United Bank provided $75 million of new permanent financing for the transaction.

Virginia Beach, Va. — Dollar General, Lily’s As Seen on TV, Sunrise Pizzeria and General Nutrition Corporation have all signed leases for retail space in Virginia, according to Divaris Real Estate, which represented the shopping centers in the transactions.

Dollar General renewed its lease for 6,720 sq. ft. in the Divaris-leased and –managed Glenwood Shoppes in Norfolk.

Undeterred by volatility in its sales results, leading footwear retailer DSW maintained its pace of expansion and opened 16 new stores to end the third quarter with 393 locations.

The operator of large format footwear stores that average about 22,000-sq.-ft., said its third quarter sales declined 0.7% while total sales increased 6.8% to $633 million due to the addition of the new stores. The third quarter comp decline is the latest development in what has been a tumultuous year from a sales standpoint.

The Children's Place president and CEO Jane Elfers focused on the positive following decreases in net and comparable-store sales for the third quarter, despite the company’s reportedly strong performance during the back-to-school period.

Famous footwear may have generated record third quarter sales, but parent company Brown Shoe was unwilling to get too ambitious with holiday expectations given uncertainty it sees around promotional activity and consumer sentiment.

An increase in third-quarter net sales was not enough to bolster Chico’s FAS’s net income, which took a hit from its Boston Proper business.

The company reported net income of $35.8 million, down 15% from $42 million in the same period a year earlier.