Retail

  Bloomberg Kohl’s Corp shares rose in early trading after the retail chain and Franchise Group Inc said they entered exclusive talks on a potential $8 billion takeover deal. The companies said in separate statements that they entered a three-week exclusivity period to discuss Franchise Group’s offer to buy Kohl’s for $60 a share. Kohl’s shares rose 9% to $45.90 …

Bloomberg Stock splits were all the rage early this year as indexes hovered near record highs, with companies from Amazon.com Inc. to Alphabet Inc announcing them to make their share prices more alluring to individual investors. A few months on, the market has taken care of the problem. Amazon is among companies whose stocks have tumbled since the moves were …

  Bloomberg Walmart Inc said it needs another two quarters or so to work through an inventory surge that prompted markdowns and contributed to last month’s steep stock decline. About a fifth of the 32% jump in inventories last quarter came from merchandise piling up more quickly than the company wanted, said John Furner, chief of Walmart’s US operations. Another …

  Bloomberg Starbucks said it’s reopening its stores in Shanghai after a wave of Covid-19 infections and government lockdowns hurt its business in key Chinese market. The Seattle-based company has reopened 600 of its 940 stores in the city, a spokeswoman said by email. Starbucks is moving quickly to restart business there on just the third day of Shanghai’s official …

  Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd replaced Lazada Group Chief Executive Officer Chun Li with the head of its Thailand business and one-time business assistant to Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang as competition in Southeast Asia intensifies. James Dong, 42, is taking the reins of Lazada, Alibaba’s Southeast Asian arm, with immediate effect while Li will serve as adviser to Lazada …

  Bloomberg Plant milk is on the cusp of another boom as the industry courts a huge demographic it has ignored so far: children. Using colourful bottles of oat and pea milk packed with protein and prebiotics, the category is winning over parents. At Ripple Foods, a startup that has raised more than $200 million, its plant-based option for kids …

  Bloomberg Denim maker Levi Strauss & Co is scaling up investment in its stores and website, as well as women’s apparel, to reach a sales target of $9 billion to $10 billion by 2027. In a new set of strategic targets, Levi now sees sales growth of 6% to 8% annually, up from its prior goal of 4% to …

  Bloomberg Lady M is weighing a new funding round that could value the New-York based bakery chain at about $600 million, according to people familiar with the matter. The company, known for its signature Mille Crepes cakes, is looking to raise about $20 million to fuel its expansion in Asia, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing …

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s retail sales surprisingly rebounded in April, lifting the sector out of contraction after strict Covid curbs hammered consumer spending earlier this year. Sales value rose 11.7% in April from a year earlier, the Census and Statistics Department said. That was far better than the median estimate of a 7.9% decline expected by economists in a Bloomberg survey. …

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc shareholders delivered a rebuke to the company over the pay for Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy and other top executives, with an unusually close vote in the symbolic measure to ratify compensation packages for the company’s leaders. Vote totals disclosed in a filing show 56% of shareholders supported the company’s executive pay for 2021, which included $350 …