News

New York -- Best Buy Co. on Friday said it agreed to extend the deadline to Feb. 28 for founder Richard Schulze to make a bid for the company.

The company said it is in the best interest of shareholders to let Schulze and his partners include results from the holiday season in their due diligence review.

Restoration Hardware doesn’t operate many stores, but it is enjoying tremendous momentum at the ones it does operate.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — New York Mets baseball executive Paul DePodesta is the newest member of the Sears Holdings board.

Although his qualifications are somewhat unconventional, DePodesta was elected to the board because his experience as VP of player development and amateur scouting for the Mets is believe to help Sears Holdings in the area of personnel development.

Former Best Buy chairman Richard Schulze is reportedly close to reaching an agreement to buy the company he founded, according to a Minneapolis Star Tribune report citing a source close to the situation.

CHICAGO, Ill. — Brand development and deployment services provider Schawk has appointed Michael Larkin as its new VP of business development.

In his new role, Larkin will be responsible for driving business development activities at consumer packaged goods companies across North America, helping those companies drive top line growth and improve efficiency at the brand level. He will focus on developing relationships with new accounts.

IRVINE, Calif. — Greeting card manufacturer Hallmark has extended its contract with iPass, a high-speed wide area networking platform and Wi-Fi service provider.

Hallmark has used iPass to provide managed network services to more than 2,100 corporate and independent retail locations for the last seven years. The new five-year contract will enhance Hallmark’s networking capabilities, allowing it to add new managed services that will allow the card manufacturer to further its expansion into the digital market.  

WAYNE, N.J. — With 12 shopping days left, Toys"R"Us plans to keep most of its stores open for 88 consecutive hours nationwide, from 6 a.m. Friday, December 21 through 10 p.m. Christmas Eve.

Shoppers in many markets have to drive past one of Dollar General’s more than 10,000 stores before they get to their local Walmart, a situation that will intensify in 2013.

Dollar General is opening stores so fast its store count sometimes changes multiple times throughout the day. It surpassed 10,000 units earlier this year and by the end of the company third quarter on November 2, it had opened 479 out of 625 stores planned for 2012. Next year, 635 new units are planned and by the end of next year the company’s store count will be in the vicinity of 11,000 stores.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Pier 1 Imports expressed renewed confidence in its three-year growth plan following the release of third quarter results that same store sales advance 7.9%.

NEW YORK — Chobani Greek Yogurt is the recipient of the 2012 North America Innovation in Leadership award for its groundbreaking contribution to the U.S. yogurt sector, presented by Rabobank.

Grace Simmons, VP of strategic initiatives for Chobani, accepted the award at the global bank’s recent Commodity, Corporate, and Trade Finance Forum.