Retail

Salt Lake City -- Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne has relinquished his role as chairman of the company. In other moves, co-president Stormy Simon was named president of the online discount retailer.

Byrne will continue to serve as CEO, while current executive vice chairman Jonathan Johnson assumes the chairman responsibilities Byrnes has held since 2006.

Fort Worth, Texas – Snowstorms that affected as many as two-thirds of the selling days in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 in some key markets dampened financial performance at Pier 1 Imports Inc.

Compared to the same period the prior year, net income fell 31% to $42.6 million from $61.7 million. Total sales fell 6% to $515.8 million from $551.6 million and same-store sales dropped 4.6%.

Dallas — SRS Real Estate Partners welcomes Logan Elder as an associate in the Atlanta office. She will focus on tenant representation.

Elder comes to SRS from Post Properties, where she handled management and leasing for multi-family developments retail and restaurant space.

New York -- Japanese online giant Rakuten has teamed up with First Bankcard to launch the Rakuten Rewards MasterCard Program, which provides cardholders with reward points for using their credit card to shop on Rakuten.com and elsewhere.

Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, is Rakuten's U.S. marketplace, offering consumers more than 17 million products at everyday low prices from a network of small and large business shop owners.

Dallas -- Corner Bakery Café has signed a new multi-unit development agreement with Holm Bake, LLC, headquartered in Winter Park, Fla., which plans to open its first of 17 restaurants in the Orlando, Fla., area next year and the remaining sites over the following six years.

Allen, Texas -- Forte Payment Systems is launching Forte Checkout, an intuitive platform for online payment acceptance that supports electronic check in addition to credit and debit card payment methods. Forte Checkout integrates seamlessly and securely to applications that need payment handling capabilities.

New Albany, Ohio -- Abercrombie & Fitch Co. announced that Joanne C. Crevoiserat has been named executive VP and CFO of the company, a position she is expected to take up in May, 2014.