Retail

Following a heated back-and-forth between Jos. A. Bank and the Men’s Wearhouse, which culminated in an ultimatum, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers has terminated its acquisition proposal.

As previously reported, Jos. A. Bank had advised the Men's Wearhouse board that it would terminate its all-cash proposal to purchase the company for $48 per share if the board failed to “engage in good faith negotiations” by Nov. 14. The day came and went and the companies continued in a deadlock.

New York -- Macy’s Herald Square store has taken the wraps off a dramatic makeover of its beauty and fragrances department. Re-fashioned within a brand-new 24,000-sq.-ft. space, the new department includes brand new counters, shops and bars for brows, blow-outs and nails.

Houston – Jos. A. Bank has officially withdrawn its all-cash bid to purchase Men’s Wearhouse for $48 per share, or about $2.3 billion, after failing to get the retailer to enter into merger talks ahead of a Thursday deadline.

Robert N. Wildrick, chairman of the board of Jos. A. Bank, sent a letter to Men’s Wearhouse CEO Doug Ewert informing him that since Men’s Wearhouse had not engaged in good faith negotiations by a previously stated Nov. 14 deadline, Jos. A. Bank would terminate its proposal.

Sam’s Club was Walmart’s best performing division during the third quarter and holiday plans outlined by president and CEO Rosalind Brewer suggest that could be the case in the fourth quarter as well.

Same store sales at Sam’s increased 1.1% and total sales increased 2.1% to $12.4 billion a while with traffic was up among both business and individual members. Operating profit increased 9.2% to $474 million.

New York -- The hot social-sharing site Pinterest has released its first API for developers. It will help stores and brands display which of their items were most frequently and recently pinned. The first partners for the service include Zappos, Walmart, Disney, and Nestle, reflecting how the site is looking to increase revenue generation with advertising and cross-marketing. (An API, short for application programming interface, is code that allows developers to create apps that interface with a popular web service or other software.)

Houston – Susser has signed a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the convenience store assets and fuel distribution contracts of Sac-N-Pac Stores, Inc. and 3W Warren Fuels, Ltd.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are committing $1 million to the Red Cross and Save the Children for emergency relief efforts in response to needs created by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The donation includes funds given by the Walmart Foundation and Walmart's international operations.

Red hot Pinterest is offering new functunality to third parties that will allow them to curate content and drive traffic to their sites, and major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Zappos are all over it.