OPERATIONS / SUPPLY CHAIN

Woodland Hills, Calif. -- Great American Group said Thursday it has been retained to manage the going-out-of-business sale of all Pierre Deux stores, a French furnishing retailer that operated across 13 states.

Pierre Deux ceased business operations and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on June 23.

“The trustee has charged us with selling the company’s inventory in all of the stores,” said Scott Carpenter, executive VP and the head of the Retail Services Division for Great American Group.

Dallas -- PeopleAnswers and Crabtree & Evelyn announced on Thursday a software licensing agreement for the retailer to use the PeopleAnswers HR solution for pre-employment screening and selection for hourly employees and store managers in its 72 stores across the United States in preparation for the holiday season.

New York City -- Walgreens plans to start selling health insurance to customers this fall, according to CNN Money.

The drugstore chain will sell health insurance products with different price ranges and coverage levels through a private health insurance exchange, the report said.

To read the full story, go to money.cnn.com/2011/08/09/news/companies/walgreens_health_insurance/

St. Louis -- Dollar General has signed a multi-year contract with Interface to provide secure managed cloud services to the retailer’s 9,5000 plus stores that will improve operations, and increase the security of customer and employee data, while providing significant reductions in operating expenses.

Under the agreement, Dollar General will use Interface’s managed cloud services for its entire retail store network.

Camp Hill, Pa. -- Rite Aid Corp. announced Monday it has named Susan Henderson as senior VP and chief communications officer to replace Karen Rugen, who retired last month.

Henderson previously worked for Chicago-based strategy execution and employment engagement firm Gagen MacDonald; before that, she was VP communications for Harley-Davidson. She has also worked for the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. in Chicago, Kohl's Department Stores and the Miller Brewing Co.
 

San Francisco -- Visa announced Tuesday that it plans to accelerate the migration to EMV contact and contactless chip technology in the United States.

The adoption of dual-interface chip technology will help prepare the U.S. payment infrastructure for the arrival of NFC-based mobile payments by building the necessary infrastructure to accept and process chip transactions that support either a signature or PIN at the point of sale.

Chicago -- A Tuesday report by NPD Group said that U.S. restaurant unit counts declined by 2%, which translates to a loss of 9,450 restaurants since last year.

According to the report, most of the total unit declines were independent restaurants. Chain restaurant unit counts remained relatively stable, according to NPD research.

New York City -- Carrefour SA said Tuesday that it is not in discussions to sell its Brazilian unit to Wal-Mart Stores.

Newspaper Valor Economico had reported that the U.S. retailer was in discussions with Carrefour to acquire the French retailer’s Brazilian unit. The acquisition would have made Wal-Mart the largest retailer in Brazil after the acquisition.