Management

Sears Holdings investors are too giddy about the money-losing retailer's slow-motion breakup. Shares of Edward S. Lampert's struggling store chain jumped 35 percent by early Friday afternoon on the news that it may create a real estate investment trust for many of its stores and lease them back. The move would raise significant cash, but shareholders, Mr. Lampert included, would finance the deal. And the prospects for the rump retailer remain pretty dim. The hedge fund billionaire's REIT proposal is the latest twist in what's starting to look like a gradual divvying up of the company's most attractive assets.

A slew of national retailers are making a point of the fact that they're not going along with the trend to open — and open earlier and earlier — on Thanksgiving Day. In one of the most noticeable trends thus far in the holiday shopping season, several mall mainstays are engaged in an aggressive game of Thanksgiving store hour one-upmanship. The skirmishes began with Macy's announcement it would open for "Black Friday" sales starting at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, two hours earlier than last year.

While L Brands has never rushed into international markets, overseas expansion is starting to come into greater focus for the company. In fact, recent results are starting to paint a picture of great opportunity, officials said. "We'd like to be simply the best in the world," CEO and Founder Leslie H. Wexner told analysts who had flown in from throughout the country for the company's annual investor conference yesterday. International expansion, while still a small piece of the Columbus, Ohio-based retailer's profits, was easily the most talked-about topic at the event.

Was it Election Day? There was plenty else happening at Target. On Tuesday, the Minneapolis-based retailer announced it would close 11 stores. It also swatted away an investment firm trying to buy shares on the cheap and started selling tchotchkes made by 3-D printers, latching on to one of the hottest things in high-tech. The store-closing step is one that Target takes at least once a year after a financial review of its 1,800 U.S. outlets. 

Foot Locker CEO Ken Hicks is retiring and will be succeeded by Richard Johnson, the sneaker chain's COO. Hicks, 61, who joined the chain in 2009 from J.C. Penney, plans to step down on Dec. 1 and will continue as executive chairman through the annual shareholder meeting in May, the New York-based company said in a statement. Since arriving at Foot Locker, Hicks has revamped store layouts and merchandising, while closing weaker locations. Hicks also added more running footwear just as the category took off. 

You're about to see a new wave of digital-savvy, global-minded retail CEOs. At least those were the findings from a new study unveiled last week by Women’s Wear Daily and Berglass+Associates, an executive search firm specializing in retail and consumer goods. The study, which surveyed 127 retail professionals, 32 percent of whom were CEOs, found that there will be an overhaul of the C-suite and its boardroom by 2020.

With all the acclaim that Amazon.com receives for being an innovative, bleeding-edge technology company/online retailer, it may come as somewhat of a surprise that its workforce is primarily composed of white men. Without knowing any better, I would have thought that the online retail giant had a more diversified workforce.

Environmental groups are trying to put a scare into Lowe's this Halloween. Locations of the home improvement store across the U.S. and Canada have been targeted this week with protests and petitions that ask it to not be a "little shop of horrors" for bees. The campaign, spearheaded by Friends of the Earth, is designed to get Lowe's to eliminate products and plants that are treated with neonicotinoid pesticides, which some consider harmful to bees. The world's bee population has been dying by the billions in recent years, and some experts point to pesticide use as a major contributing factor. 

Dollar General said Friday that it's extended its hostile bid for Matthews, N.C.-based Family Dollar until Dec. 31. The $80 per share, all-cash bid had been set to expire at the end of the day Friday. Family Dollar has rebuffed Dollar General's advances, with the company's board of directors turning down Dollar General's bids so far. Instead, Family Dollar's board wants to complete a previously announced acquisition by rival discount retailer Dollar Tree, which the companies agreed to in July. Family Dollar shareholders are set to vote on the Dollar Tree deal Dec. 11 in Charlotte. 

Retailers push for ever-earlier shopping on Thanksgiving Day continues. Joining the still-swelling wave, Kohl's said Thursday that its stores will open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, two hours earlier than last year. That puts the Menomonee Falls, Wis.-based chain on even footing with Macy's, which already announced a 6 p.m. start to the pre-Black Friday shopping extravaganza. Macy's opened at 8 p.m. last year. Other big retailers such as Target and Sears have yet to disclose their plans, but Anne Brouwer, senior partner with Chicago retail consultant McMillanDoolittle, said she expects more announcements of openings at 6, or earlier.