Mass Merchant

New York City -- Two private equity firms are teaming up to make a bid to purchase BJ’s Wholesale Club, the New York Post reported.

Leonard Green & Partners and CVC Capital Partners are reportedly set to offer $2.8 billion to purchase the club retailer, according to the Post.

Rumors that BJ's Wholesale could be sold have been circulating for months. In March, the chain revealed in an SEC filing that it entered into a "confidentiality agreement" with Leonard Green to evaluate a possible purchase.

New York City -- Brazil jumped to first place in A.T. Kearney’s annual ranking of the top developing economies for global retail expansion, followed by Uruguay and Chile respectively.

The 10th annual Global Retail Development Index reflects the dramatic changes that have taken place in global markets, and the varying impacts they have had on different emerging economies. Notably, countries in South America, which fared well during the recession, posted an impressive 6% growth in 2010.

New York City -- NCR is adding 800 Blockbuster Express kiosks to Food Lion grocery stores despite litigation over the Blockbuster Express trademark with Blockbuster and Dish Network Corp., which bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy in late April.

The kiosks will be added to Food Lions across the mid-Atlantic and southeastern U.S. regions.

On average, across the retailer set, both the number of inserts and number of page counts decreased when comparing the month of May 2011 to May 2010. Notable standouts for the insert counts include a decline of 39% for Home Depot and an 11% decrease for Lowe’s.  While both Home Depot and Lowe’s dropped fewer inserts this year compared to last year, Home Depot’s decline was more pronounced from nearly seven inserts in 2010 to four in 2011.

The enormity of the Chinese e-commerce opportunity was mentioned last week by Wan Ling Martello at Walmart’s shareholders meeting, when the COO of global e-commerce described how China’s online market is projected to quadruple to $300 billion in five years. Walmart obviously wants to be part of that growth and looked to shorten its learning curve earlier this year by acquiring a minority stake in fast growing online grocer Yihaodian.

WASHINGTON — The retail industry won a big victory in Washington, D.C., as the Senate defeated an amendment that proposed to delay swipe-fee reform for another 12 months.

Bangalore, India -- A Wednesday report by Bloomberg said that Wal-Mart Stores, in its joint venture with Indian company Bharti Enterprises, plans to triple its wholesale outlet locations in India this year.

The report comes as Wal-Mart and other foreign retailers have been blocked from opening retail outlets in India, and are permitted only to set up wholesale locations.

Hingham, Mass. -- The Talbots said Thursday it has named Lesli Gilbert as senior VP stores, effective June 27.

Gilbert will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of Talbots core retail operations in the United States and Canada, as well as supporting the implementation of the company’s store reimage and rationalization programs. She will report to president and CEO Trudy F. Sullivan.

Gilbert was most recently regional VP East for T-Mobile USA, and, prior to that, was senior director of sales and customer experience at Gap.