Retail

Shares of Burlington Stores surged more than 40% in their first day of trading as the company executed an initial public offering on Wednesday.

The retailer operates 503 stores primarily under the name Burlington Coat Factory and sold 13.3 million shares that were priced at $17, slightly above an earlier range of $14 to $16. The limited number of shares contributed to strong demand and at the open the stock price popped more than 40% and closed at $25.13.

Proceeds from the sale were estimated to total roughly $205 million which the company planned to use to repay debt.

Pittsburgh -- GNC Holdings has acquired A1 Sports Limited, which operates under the Discount Supplements moniker. The company is the leading multi-brand sports nutrition e-commerce retailer in the United Kingdom. Terms of the deal, which was funded with cash on hand, were not disclosed.
 
Following the acquisition, GNC.com, LuckyVitamin.com and Discount-supplements.co.uk will continue to operate as separate businesses, each with its own product offerings and target customers.

Dallas — SRS Real Estate Partners www.srsre.com has opened the doors to a new office in Birmingham, Ala. The company has also brought in Martin Smith to serve as senior VP and co-market leader alongside Josh Burmeister.

A 13-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry, Smith specializes in landlord representation, tenant representation and investment sales. Prior to joining SRS, he spent seven years with Retail Specialists, where he was director of brokerage and project leasing.
 

Lansing, Mich. — Mid-America Real Estate Corporation’s Investment Sales team has brokered the sale of a portion of the 313,000-sq.-ft. Edgewood Town Center in Lansing, Mich. Office Max and Dollar Tree anchor the center, while Target and Sam’s Club shadow anchor.

RCG Ventures LLC purchased the 86,000-sq.-ft. portion, whch excludes shadow anchors, for an undisclosed amount from Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust. Mid-America represented Ramco-Gershenson.

Beachwood, Ohio — DDR Corp. has announced the closing of its previously announce acquisition activity totaling $591 million. The acquisitions include a portfolio of seven prime power centers in a newly-formed joint venture with an affiliate of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII L.P. for $332 million in August and two market dominant regional power centers in Orlando, Fla. and Atlanta, Ga., for an aggregate $259 million in July.

Springfield, N.J. – Village Super Market reported net income of $6.2 million during fourth quarter 2013 and $25.8 million during the full fiscal year. These figures were respectively down 31% from $9 million and 18% from $31.4 million year-over-year.

The retailer cited the negative impact of higher expenses and lower gross profits as contributing to its drop in net income.

To remain in the same e-commerce class as its peers, Pennsauken, N.J.-based Becker’s School Supplies, Inc. redeveloped and relaunched its online retail site on the WebLinc e-commerce platform.

“We needed a significant upgrade of our Web presence,” explained Robert Bonczkiewicz, catalog manager at Becker’s. “Competitors in our space are top-notch and we needed to get up to speed.”

Los Angeles – The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has experienced significant lift across key social metrics such as local Facebook fans and impressions using the MomentFeed location-based marketing platform.