News

St. Louis — Brown Shoe Co., which operates Famous Footwear Stores, said Thursday it has named Diane M. Sullivan president and CEO.

The company announced in January that it had promoted Sullivan, its president and COO.  She steps into the role Thursday following a four-month transition period from chairman and CEO Ronald A. Fromm. 

Fromm remains Brown Shoe's chairman of the board.

Walmart CFO Charles Holley participated in the Citi Global Consumer Conference this past Tuesday, and he had the challenge of appearing just one week after Walmart released first-quarter results. Given the timing, it would have been reasonable to expect that he wouldn’t have a lot of new information to share, and while he certainly covered a lot of familiar ground, there was one area that stood out.

GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Dollar General announced its plans to expand its operations to California in 2012.

The California announcement comes on the heels of the company’s planned expansions into three new states in 2011 — Connecticut, Nevada and New Hampshire. California would be Dollar General’s 39th state.

The company said it plans to serve shoppers in rural, suburban and metropolitan markets.

By Scott Setrakian, [email protected]

Who should manage your company's digital ad budget dollars? In an advertising world where digital advertising dollars have now been proven to impact in-store sales, who should own the digital ad budget — the dot.com division, or the stores team?

COLUMBUS, Ohio — For the first time, Big Lots is expanding its retail operations outside of the United States with the announcement that it has agreed to purchase all of the outstanding stock of Liquidation World Inc., an Ontario based retailer which operates 92 closeout stores in Canada. 

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Fred's net income increased 16% to $9.5 million, or 24 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $8.2 million, or 21 cents per diluted share in the year-earlier period.

The retailer said that total sales rose 3% to $484.4 million from $471.6 million for the same period last year. For comps, Fred's reported a 1% rise on top of a 2.2% increase for the first quarter last year.

Fred's gross profit for first quarter 2011 increased 1% to $137.9 million from $136.9 million in the prior-year period.

New York — Tiffany & Co. said Thursday its first-quarter profit rose 25% on higher revenue across all regions worldwide. The results beat expectations and the company raised its forecast for the year above current Wall Street estimates.

Tiffany net income rose to $81.1 million for the three months ended April 30, up from $64.4 million a year earlier.

Revenue jumped 20% to $761 million from $633.6 million last year, sharply higher than analyst predictions of $702.6 million.

Walmart is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders’ meeting one week from today, and the event is a tale of two meetings. One the one hand, there is the pageantry and puffery of the actual shareholders meeting, which runs from 7 a.m. to about 11 a.m. central time. If the company holds true to form the event will be a high-energy, star-studded affair that is long on style and short on substance with a dollop of official business thrown in. The event is designed primarily for the thousands of employees who attend from throughout the U.S.