Department Store

Former CVS, Macys and Sears executive Mark Cosby has a new role at Office Depot where he will serve as president of the company’s North American business.

Stamford, Conn. -- General Electric is spinning off its Synchrony Financial consumer credit business in an initial public offering (IPO) and seeking a market valuation as high as $22 billion. Synchrony offers store credit cards for retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and J.C. Penney Co.

Mahwah, N.J. - Dirk Montgomery, executive VP and CFO of Ascena Retail Group Inc. since January 2013, has accepted a position with a healthcare-related company based in Florida. Ascena has initiated a search process for a new CFO.

Montgomery has agreed to remain through the end of the summer. Randy Pearce, a member of Ascena’s board of directors, chair of the Audit Committee, and former CFO of Regis Corp. from 1998 to 2011, will increase his involvement in overseeing the company’s finance department during the transition.

New York - Michael J. Kowalski, CEO of Tiffany and Co., will retire from the company effective March 31, 2015. Kowalski, who has been with Tiffany for 30 years and a member of the company’s board of directors since 1995, will continue to serve on the board in the role of non-executive chairman.

Tiffany has named Frederic Cumenal, currently the company’s president, to succeed Kowalski as CEO effective April 1, 2015. Kowalski, 62, joined Tiffany in 1983, became CEO in 1999 and assumed the role of chairman of the board in 2003.

Fort Worth, Texas -- Trademark Property Co. announced it has been engaged to manage and lease Uptown Village at Cedar Hill, a 610,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use open-air center in Cedar Hill, Texas.

Strategically located in the midst of a dynamic retail hub less than 20 minutes south of downtown Dallas, Uptown Village includes 350,000 sq. ft. of specialty stores and restaurants and 35,000 sq. ft. of office space.

Ross Stores is in the process of opening 23 Ross Dress for Less and seven dd's Discounts stores across 17 different states. The new locations are part of the off-price retailer's plans to add a total of 75 Ross and 20 dd's Discounts stores during 2014.

"These latest openings reflect our ongoing expansion strategy to fill in our presence in existing markets while also increasing penetration in our newer Midwest region where we added another eight Ross locations in July,” said Jim Fassio, president and chief development officer.

New York – The 2014 Harris Poll EquiTrend (EQ) study, which measures brand equity for more than 1,500 brands across 170 categories, finds traditional grocery store brands rank highest overall in three of the four regions surveyed. The EQ index examines three key factors of brand equity: familiarity, quality and purchase consideration.

Dublin, Calif. - Ross Stores opened 23 Ross Dress for Less stores and seven DD’s Discounts locations across 17 states in June and July. These new locations are part of the retailer's plans to add a total of approximately 75 Ross and 20 DD’s Discounts stores during 2014.

Ross believes that future growth opportunities include almost doubling its store count from its current 1,194 stores to 2,000 stores, and also growing DD’s Discounts from 144 stores to 500 stores.