Mergers & Acquisitions

Kohl’s is celebrating the grand opening of nine new stores across seven states: Illinois, New York, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. The chain plans to open a total of approximately 40 stores in 2011.

Aeropostale announced that it's signed a licensing agreement with Montreal PTE Ltd., a joint venture between Apparel Group LLC and Jay Gee Melwani Group, to open approximately 25 stores across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia over the next five years.

Sears Holdings has joined other retailers, including Barnes & Noble, in inviting Amazon.com affiliates to work with its brand following Amazon's response to recent legislation related to collected taxes on e-commerce purchases.

The biggest players in the world of retail have come together to form a Super Friends-like coalition, whose mission is to address the environmental and social impacts of their products. Made up of global retailers like Nike, Wal-Mart, Target and Gap among others, the “Sustainable Apparel Coalition” intends to create a universal Apparel Index that would eventually give retailers the opportunity to publish environmental scoring metrics on their products.

Wal-Mart has made a push to capitalize on Amazon’s ongoing tax troubles in California, by reaching out to the online retailer’s business partners. In a public statement, Wal-Mart said that it was “committed to supporting the affiliate programmes which help to drive Walmart.com's online business.”

Retail giants, non-governmental organizations, academic experts, and the Environmental Protection Agency are banding together to reduce the social and environmental impacts of apparel and footwear products sold worldwide. 

J.Crew will once again be a private company after shareholders approved a $2.86 billion deal for the retailer to be acquired by TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners.

1SaleADay.com, home to the largest independently owned daily-deal website, announced its new partnership with Optima Ventures. Optima Venture's capital investment will enable the company to continue to fulfill its 1.5 million customers' ever-growing appetite for their daily-deal offers.

The Knot, a media company that targets brides-to-be and pregnant women, said that Macy's has sold back its 10.7 percent stake in The Knot for $37.7 million. The Knot didn't give a reason for the repurchase and said it's part of a previously announced $50 million buyback plan. 

Media and marketing services company Valassis and News America Marketing have formed a cross-publishing deal to expand the digital offers on Valassis' redplum.com and News America Marketing's SmartSource.com coupon and savings websites.