Department Store

(L-R) Target's Brian Cornell and Walgreens' Alexander Gourlay

Melville, N.Y. -- A&G Realty Partners has been retained by Delia’s Inc. to manage the sale of the 71 retail store leases following the company’s recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
 
A&G Realty is currently accepting bids thru February 2, 2015 to acquire the leases, which range from 3,000 sq. ft. to 5,000 sq. ft. in key retail locations at some of the country’s top malls.

Holiday discounts helped Bon-Ton Stores post a robust increase in same-store sales.

The company said same-store sales for the nine-week holiday period ended Jan. 3 increased 5.3%. Total sales for the combined months of November and December were up 3.8%, the company said.

Kathryn Bufano, president and CEO, said the company was “pleased” with the numbers, but that a “highly promotional sales environment” tempered the impact of those improved sales on Bon-Ton’s profits.

Columbus, Ohio –  Express Inc. and private-equity firm Sycamore Partners announced that, despite having worked together in good faith towards a transaction during the past several months, discussions regarding Sycamore’s expressed interest in acquiring Express have been terminated. The companies said that discussions were halted due to the unavailability of financing on commercially acceptable terms.

In June, Express said it had been approached by Sycamore about a potential deal. Sycamore Partners has a 9.8% stake in Express.

Plano, Texas – Meet the new catalog, same as the old catalog. The J.C. Penney Co. Inc. is reportedly bringing back its print catalog, often referred to as the “big book,” which the retailer discontinued in 2010.

Burlington, Mass. -- Talbots will open a new store on Jan. 30 at Wayside, in Burlington, Massachusetts, according to Wayside’s management and leasing firm The Wilder Companies.

The opening of the 9,300-sq.-ft. Talbots, which features all three of the brand’s concepts -- Talbots, Talbots Petites, and the first Talbot Woman in the market -- is part of a multi-phase revitalization that is nearing completion at the open-air retail center.

The obituary for the printed retail catalog might have been a bit premature, if J.C. Penney is correct.

The retailer is reportedly bringing back its big glossy paper catalog after new evidence surfaced suggesting that print catalogs drive sales, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Washington, D.C. - The National Retail Federation (NRF) has publicly expressed disappointment at the U.S. Supreme Court’s announcement that it would not review an appellate court ruling on whether the Federal Reserve set a 2011 cap on debit card swipe fees higher than the level sought by Congress in legislation passed the year before.