News

When Westchester’s Ridge Hill launches its grand-opening festivities over the four-day period from Oct. 20 to 23, it will be celebrating not only the introduction of a one-of-a-kind shopping destination for New Yorkers, but also a series of market debuts for the area.

By Sven Hammar, CEO, Apica

Walmart didn’t release a third-quarter same-store sales figure when it held a meeting with financial analysts on Wednesday, but it might as well have. Everything else the company’s senior executives said about the performance of the U.S. stores division indicated the nightmare that has been nine consecutive quarter of negative comps will end on Nov. 15 when quarterly results are reported.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell was named president of the Walmart Foundation Friday morning and will join the organization in January 2012. She currently serves as president global development for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will replace Margaret McKenna who served as president of the Walmart Foundation since 2007 and announced her retirement earlier this year.

Walmart has pegged its success in the United States on widening the price gap with competitors to fulfill its everyday low price value proposition, and again this week senior leaders in the stores division vowed to win on price.

Let’s say you are a major global retailer, perhaps the largest in the world, and interested in expanding into markets beyond the 28 where you currently have a presence. Is the better strategy to publicly identify new markets of interest and a timetable for entry, thereby elevating asset prices, or to shun deal-making to pursue ample organic growth opportunities in existing markets all the while reserving the right to strike opportunistically when market conditions are most favorable?

Although Walmart won’t provide official fourth-quarter sales guidance until Nov. 15 when it releases third-quarter sales, company executives sounded very bullish about Walmart’s prospects for holiday success and longer-term growth during an all-day meeting with financial analysts on Wednesday.

BOSTON — Global private equity firm Advent International has announced that Tom Ryan, former chairman and CEO of CVS Caremark, has joined the firm’s Operating Partner Program. In this role, Ryan will advise and work closely with Advent’s investment professionals to identify opportunities and generate post-investment value at retail and healthcare companies globally.

Target announced that Steve Eastman, president of Target.com, left the retailer to pursue other opportunities. Eastman’s departure follows a late August relaunch of Target.com.

COMMERCE, Calif. — The investment group that agreed to buy 99 Cents Only Stores for $1.6 billion must be pleased with the discounter's second-quarter results.

99 Cents Only Stores reported total sales of $363 million for the second quarter, an increase of 8.8% over total sales of $333.6 million for the same quarter last year. Same-store sales for the quarter were up 6.7%. The number of same-store-sales transactions increased 4.7% and the average transaction size increased to $9.62 from $9.44, the company reported.