Mass Merchant

The world’s largest company held its annual shareholders meeting Friday morning and the most noteworthy development at the event — aside from a $15 billion share repurchase authorization — was a surprise appearance and glowing comments by Hollywood heavyweight Tom Cruise.

Bryn Mawr, Pa. -- WP Realty has acquired Plaza at the Pointe, a 149,016-sq.-ft. center located near Pittsburgh in the Parkway West retail submarket.

Anchor tenants include Bed, Bath & Beyond, Old Navy, La-Z-Boy and Party City. An additional 21,556 sq. ft. anchor space is currently vacant.

Latitude 40, a recently redeveloped 60,000-sq.-ft. entertainment center, and a number of national retailers shadow-anchor Plaza at the Pointe from adjacent properties.
 

CardinalCommerce and Unbound Commerce have rolled out a cloud wallet service for online merchants. The cloud wallet service from Unbound Commerce scheduled for release in July leverages Universal Wallet APITM from Cardinal to offer a single point connection to several leading digital wallets. 

Walmart U.S. chief merchandising and marketing officer Duncan Mac Naughton will have some explaining to do next week when he is scheduled to participate in the 33rd Annual William Blair Growth Stock Conference on Wednesday, June 12.

Leominster, Mass. -- Vintage Real Estate has purchased The Mall at Whitney Field, a 700,000-sq.-ft. regional shopping center in Leominster, Mass., about 35 miles west of Boston. Anchors include Macy’s, Sears, J.C. Penney, Market Basket, Toys “R” Us and Old Navy.

Concurrent with the acquisition, Burlington Coat Factor signed a 10-year lease for a 66,000-sq.-ft. space formerly occupied by Circuit City.

The Woodlands, Texas -- Conn's Inc.’s net income nearly doubled in its first-quarter, with strong sales of furniture and mattresses and some higher prices. The company lifted its fiscal 2014 adjusted earnings forecast.

Conn's earned a better-than-expected $22.2 million for the quarter ended April 30, up from $11.6 million a year ago.

Revenue jumped 25% to $251.1 million. Same-store sales rose 16.5%.

Washington, D.C. -- Los Angeles, New York and Chicago top the list of the cities with the highest organized retail crime activity, with Miami and Atanta rounding out the top five, according to a study by the National Retail Federation.

The NRF’s ninth annual Organized Retail Crime (ORC) Survey found that while organized crime has inched down slightly, it remains widespread. Over 90% (93.5%) of retailers said they had been a victim of organized retail crime during the past year, down from 96% the prior year.

Store level execution, a topic near but not always so dear to the hearts of Walmart suppliers, will be the focus of a Doing Business in Bentonville event scheduled for next Wednesday.