Mass Merchant

Sandton, South Africa – Grant Pattison, CEO of Massmart Holdings Ltd., a South African retailer that operates as a subsidiary of Wal-Mart, is resigning. Pattison, 43, will be replaced by Massmart COO Guy Hayward, 48, on June 1, as part of what the company terms a smooth succession plan.

Pattison joined Massmart in 1998 and was appointed CEO in 2007. He was CEO when Massmart sold a majority stake to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Hayward has served with Massmart since 2000, receiving appointments as CFO in 2001 and COO in 2012.

Walmart president and CEO Doug McMillon today issued a statement congratulating Sylvia Mathews Burwell on her nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Tokyo – Uniqlo opens new stores in Berlin, and in three U.S. locations on Friday, April 11. The 2,700-sq.-ft., three-story Berlin store is located on the Tauentzienstrasse shopping boulevard and is Uniqlo’s first German store.

The Berlin store is also the largest Uniqlo store in Europe and features revolving mannequins wearing origami headdresses and LED ticker-tapes listing all the cities where Uniqlo has stores around the world.

Guy Hayward was named CEO of Massmart to fill a position currently held by Grant Pattison, the executive who engineered the sale of a majority stake of the South African retailer to Walmart.

Pattison joined Massmart in 1998 and served as CEO since 2007, helping to engineer the sale of a majority stake in the company to Walmart several years ago. Assuming the CEO role on June 1 will be current COO Guy Hayward. He joined Massmart in 2000 as CFO and was later named COO and also played a key role in the Walmart and Massmart transaction.

Columbus, Ohio – Lane Bryant opens two new stores Friday, April 11. The stores are located at Burnsville Center in Burnsville, Minn., and Alliance Town Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

Lane Bryant operates 775 stores nationwide and an e-commerce site.

New York – Total U.S. retail sales during 2013 reportedly reached $4.53 trillion, a 4.2% increase from$4.35 billion in 2012. According to new data from EMarketer, e-commerce sales of $263.3 billion, up 16.9% from $225.3 billion the prior year, helped drive overall retail sales growth.

Non-e-commerce sales totaled about $4.27 billion, a 3.5% increase from $4.12 billion in 2012. In 2014, EMarketer predicts that e-commerce sales in rhe U.S. will grow 15.5% to total $304.1 billion, or 6.4% of total retail sales of $4.73 billion.

Pleasanton, Calif. -- Safeway Inc. has received a request for additional information and documents from the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") in connection with the FTC's review of the previously announced agreement and plan of merger among Safeway and Albertson’s.

Whole Foods Market might as well declare bankruptcy now judging from widespread media coverage of Walmart’s decision to sell roughly 100 organic dry grocery items under the Wild Oats brand.