Retail

Bloomberg Investor D.E. Shaw & Co. has built an active stake in US home retailer Lowe’s Cos., according to people familiar with the matter. While D.E. Shaw’s specific plans for the investment couldn’t immediately be learned, the firm does plan to use its holding to agitate for changes at Lowe’s, the people said, asking not to be identified as the …

Bloomberg A day after embarking on a pay hike, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is taking steps to shake up management at thousands of its stores. The world’s biggest retailer is removing about 3,500 store co-managers, a salaried role that acts as a lieutenant underneath each store manager, according to people familiar with the move. It’s also adding about 1,700 assistant store …

Bloomberg Fashion house Gucci dipped into the culinary scene with the luxe Gucci Osteria, a green-walled, 50-seat restaurant nestled inside the new Gucci Garden, an experiential museum-retail concept in the historic heart of Florence, Italy. The chef is Massimo Bottura, the Modena-based proprietor of three-Michelin-starred Osteria Francescana, in 2016 named the best restaurant in the world. Now fully open to …

Bloomberg The battle for e-commerce dominance in India between Amazon.com Inc. and local rival Flipkart Online Services Pvt. has opened the door for one of the nation’s largest logistics companies to reinvent itself. Mumbai-based Allcargo Logistics Ltd., with a presence in more than 160 countries, plans to transform into a business-to-customer company with a focus on e-commerce from its traditional …

Bloomberg Members of the Walton family, heirs to the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fortune, are backing a startup that thinks it can turn a profit by reducing food waste. The business, called FoodMaven, has completed an $8.6 million Series A fundraising round that includes financing from the billionaire Walton clan. The family office is Walton Enterprises, which holds nearly half of …

Bloomberg Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc enjoyed a bumper Christmas season as UK consumers squeezed by inflation cut back on department-store spending to dress their Christmas tables in style. The Bradford, England-based grocer’s sales during the holidays beat analyst estimates as consumers splashed out on items from its premium range, including French yule logs. The shares rose as much as 4.7 …

Bloomberg Geoffroy van Raemdonck has spent his career at global fashion companies such as Ralph Lauren Corp. and Louis Vuitton. But it will take more than an eye for style to fix the problems at Neiman Marcus Group Ltd., a quintessentially American luxury department-store chain hoping to relive its former glory. Van Raemdonck, who becomes chief executive officer next month, …

Bloomberg Mothercare Plc reported a sharp drop in UK sales over the holiday season, underlining the depths of the country’s retail crisis as store owners wrestle with higher costs and a shift to online shopping. Like-for-like sales in the UK declined 7.2 percent in the past 12 weeks, the childrenswear retailer said on Monday. Gross margins are also set to …

Bloomberg The company with the biggest grip on Thailand’s brick-and-mortar retail market is expecting a partnership with China’s JD.com Inc. to help it do the same in online sales. Central Group, which controls Thailand’s biggest operator of shopping malls and department stores, expects online sales to account for as much as 15 percent of its revenue in five years, from …

Bloomberg The price war in the American grocery aisle is getting more intense. And believe it or not, the reason isn’t Amazon.com Inc. Amazon’s debut as a brick-and-mortar grocery chain in 2017 sent tremors through the supermarket industry, with Kroger Co. and other established players losing billions in market value. But with its plans for Whole Foods developing slowly, Amazon …