News

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — Tractor Supply Company, the largest retail farm and ranch store chain in the United States, has announced that its board increased the company's quarterly cash dividend 30% to $0.26 per share.

Toronto -- Canadian Tire Corp. announced that it will open the 'Canadian Tire Cloud Computing Centre' in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the fall of 2013. The 28,000-sq.-ft. site will house a digital content warehouse, application lab, testing lab and high performance data centre. It will serve as the core digital hub for the Canadian Tire Family of Companies.

LOS ANGELES — Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, is taking aim at Trader Joe’s in a full page ad it took out in the Los Angeles Times.

The union is calling out Trader Joe's for selling meat and poultry from animals raised on antibiotics. The ad highlights how the overuse of antibiotics by the meat and poultry industries on healthy animals is promoting the spread of drug resistant superbugs that threaten public health. 

Flipping the coin
Last August in this space, I discussed the troubling sales trends and tumbling earnings from iconic retailer J.C. Penney, mentioning that the growing pains associated with implementing CEO Ron Johnson’s ambitious brand overhaul might have been a case of “too much too soon.” Given that Ron Johnson is now ex-CEO, it’s clear that those growing pains were too much to overcome.

Von Maur got its start like many of its department store peers: An immigrant with an American dream opened a downtown store, customers came, they shopped, the brand took hold and took off.

In the case of the midwestern upscale department store banner Von Maur, the dreamer was German immigrant J.H.C. Petersen, who opened a downtown storefront in Davenport, Iowa, in 1872. He and his sons grew the business and sold it nearly a half-century later to a partnership that included two Austrian brothers -- C.J. and Cable von Maur, whose family gained full ownership by 1937.

ATLANTA — Kroger announced plans to host the largest Cinco de Mayo celebration in the Southeast at Fiesta Atlanta at Centennial Olympic Park this Sunday.

Kellogg’s North American first quarter results were solid, but its performance overseas, particularly in the U.K., helped bolster its results. The company reported net sales of $4 billion, an increase of 12%. Meanwhile, internal net sales, which exclude the effects of foreign currency translation, acquisitions, dispositions and integration costs, rose by 2.2 percent over the same period. 

As part of Von Maur's march beyond its core Heartland markets, in 2008 it opened a 130,000-sq.-ft. anchor store at the 1.1 million-sq.-ft. The Greene Town Center, located in Beavercreek, Ohio, and owned by MPI. That store has become the fashion heartbeat of a vibrant mixed-use destination that was originally built by MPI in 2006, expanded in 2008, and slated to expand again in 2014 with another 40,000 sq. ft. of retail.