Recall bid gains traction

Associated Press
03.26.08                                        [back to top]

NEW YORK - An executive vice president of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, exercised options for 5,330 shares and sold 4,882 shares of stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday.

In a Form 4 filed with the SEC, Mary Susan Chambers reported she exercised options at $39.88 apiece on Thursday and sold the shares for $54.08 apiece and Monday.

Chambers also surrendered 448 shares back to the company to cover tax expenses on the options.

Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be reported within two business days of the transaction.

Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) is based in Bentonville, Ark.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Tell Wal-Mart not to take her money

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Today's lead story on CNN.com is about former Missouri Wal-Mart employee Debbie Shank. Debbie used to stock shelves at night for Wal-Mart. Now she owes Wal-Mart almost $500,000.

http://action.walmartwatch.com/debbieshank

The 52 year-old was a Wal-Mart employee when she was left "brain damaged, disabled and penniless" from a car accident seven years ago. But after the Shank family received a settlement from the trucking company at fault, Wal-Mart demanded reimbursement for every cent it had paid for Debbie's medical bills - plus interest and legal fees.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Debbie Shank's case, leaving her family no choice but to pay Wal-Mart $470,000. Now her family doesn't know how they're going to be able to afford Debbie's nursing home bills.

To make things worse, the $470,000 exceeds the remaining $277,000 in Debbie's trust from the settlement, which means Wal-Mart may even go after the donations given to the Shank family for Debbie's care, including the money you helped raise in November. This is just wrong.

Wal-Mart may have won the lawsuit, but the Shank family has already lost enough. The company claims that it has to collect the money for the good of all Wal-Mart employees. But, in this particularly egregious situation, surely the largest company in the world run by the wealthiest family in the United States can give this family a break. Write to Wal-Mart executives and ask them to tell Lee Scott to do the right thing and let Debbie Shank keep her money:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/debbieshank

This company already has a reputation for treating its employees poorly, and this tragic situation exposes the company's pure heartlessness. The Shank family is living most people's worst nightmare - and Wal-Mart is only making it worse.

Debbie's husband, Jim, told reporters:

"She's 52 and she's going to live a life in a nursing home. I just got a call today from the head nurse, and (Debbie) hasn't eaten in a couple days and she's talking about wanting to die," Shank said. "It makes the visits hard."

... "Be a human being; don't be a corporation," Shank said, "for the sake of one lady who is going to be miserable for the rest of her life. Take your victory. Let us pay some bills and get some quality of life."

Tell Wal-Mart that the Shank family has paid enough and Lee Scott should reverse the decision or find another way to let the family keep this money. Help us get this family's story out by forwarding the CNN story and this e-mail to your friends and family:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/debbieshank

Thank you for telling Wal-Mart to do the right thing for Debbie Shank.

Sincerely,

David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch
Paid for by WalmartWatch.com,
a campaign of Five Stones and
The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics

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Wal-Mart to open biggest store ever

The big-box retailer says its 260,000-square-foot, two-story supercenter being built near Albany will be the company's largest store.

CNNMoney.com
March 19, 2008                        [back to top]

What's good for Wal-Mart

More Videos ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Upstate New York will soon be home to the nation's largest Wal-Mart store.

Workers are combining a standard-sized Wal-Mart store with space left vacant by a failed Sam's Club warehouse outlet on the outskirts of Albany to create a 260,000-square-foot, two-story "supercenter" selling department store merchandise as well as groceries, liquor and automotive and other services.

That's more than 25% bigger than the average Wal-Mart supercenter, which typically measures around 205,000 square feet, said Phil Serghini, a Wal-Mart spokesman in New York.

Real estate planners at the Bentonville, Ark.-based company - the world's largest retailer with more than 4,100 stores in the United States and 3,100 more overseas - never set out to build their biggest store in New York's Capital Region. In fact, the larger stores tend to be built in rural areas, Serghini said.

In the 1990s, Wal-Mart co-located a Sam's Club - its members-only warehouse store - with a Wal-Mart department store in a dual-level shopping center, with the Sam's Club on the lower floor.

The company closed the Sam's Club in 2006 because of low membership and decided to use that space to turn the department store into a supercenter.

"It's the largest one really only because of the situation involving the former Sam's Club," Serghini said. "But it is unique, and the customers are going to be very pleased with the layout."

The company had kept the project relatively quiet, not formally announcing it to the news media or to customers. Construction started about a year ago, but the transformation only recently became visible when workers opened up the newly renovated bottom floor and installed escalators.

"I didn't even realize anything was happening over here until I came back from winter break and all of a sudden there was a big hole in the floor," said Susannah Coon, a student at a nearby university who has shopped there since she started classes three years ago.

Denise Clow, who lives in suburban Albany and said she has shopped at the store since it opened, was particularly impressed by the escalators, which move both people and shopping carts. A hook grabs the bottom of the cart, which is then pulled along a track in the center of the escalator alongside the shopper riding the moving stairs.

"That's so cool," she said.

Aside from the newfangled escalators and wider aisles, the nation's biggest Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) won't be all that different from the rest. It will have the same kind of merchandise and services that are available at other supercenters, Serghini said.

The store plans to celebrate its grand opening in May.

Target's inner circle

Wal-Mart snaps up rest of Seiyu

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“Greenbackwashing”: Wal-Mart Admits It’s Not Green

by Philip Mattera,
director of the Corporate Research Project                    [back to top]

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott has finally admitted what many of us suspected all along: the company’s widely celebrated embrace of environmental principles is bogus. Responding to a question as to why his company’s carbon footprint continues to grow, Scott told the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics conference the other day: “We are not green.” At the same event, when asked why Wal-Mart continues to sell bottled water, despite its harmful environmental effects, Scott said: “We have to stay in business…If the customer wants bottled water, we are going to sell bottled water.” To top things off, he replied to a question as to when the company might reach its professed goals of generating zero waste and using 100% renewable energy by saying: “I haven’t a clue.”

While these comments were a far cry from the company’s usual green hype, the underlying point is one that Scott has actually been making all along. Wal-Mart’s environmental initiatives are in fact nothing more than an extension of its usual obsession with efficiency. Anyone who bothered to closely read Scott’s landmark “21st Century Leadership” speech in October 2005 saw that he framed the company’s efforts as waste reduction, which would reduce costs, which in turn would raise profits.

Scott reaffirmed this idea in a separate interview with the Journal’s Alan Murray at the ECO:nomics conference, video of which Wal-Mart has posted on its website. He reiterates the idea that what the company is doing is “driving waste out of the system” and thus reducing costs. When Murray asks about trade-offs, Scott amazingly denies there are any. “There don’t have to be trade-offs,” he asserts.

This is the heart of Wal-Mart’s philosophy not only about the environment but about its entire approach to business. The giant retailer can pretend there are no trade-offs because it is the master of cost shifting. It shifts employee healthcare costs to the public sector, it avoids what should be its full labor costs by fighting unionization—and it shifts the costs of environmental transformation (and other innovation) onto its suppliers. Having used its power to avoid cost burdens and difficult decisions, it is possible for Scott to dwell in a cloud-cuckoo-land where tackling problems such as global warming requires no sacrifice and is in fact a way to fatten the bottom line.

While for most economic players there is no free lunch, Wal-Mart can gorge itself at will. When other companies make misleading statements about their environmental record, that is greenwashing. What Wal-Mart has been doing might more accurately be called “greenbackwashing”—promoting the fallacious idea that a green transition can be costless.

Another corporate speaker at the ECO:nomics conference was a bit more honest. Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers acknowledged that there will be substantial costs in moving to a system of carbon regulation. However, he went on to argue that companies such as his—which is one of the largest CO2 emitters in the country—should get their greenhouse gas permits for free. This, he solemnly stated, was solely for the sake of his ratepayers. “I make a commitment that every one of those allowances will go straight to my customers, and I will sign that commitment in blood,” he said.

Undoubtedly, there will be blood—a lot of it—unless major corporations such as Wal-Mart and Duke Energy acknowledge that environmental transition will entail costs and that corporate profits cannot be immune from those burdens.

Copyright © 2008 Dirt Diggers Digest. WordPress Theme design. .

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North Chico Wal-Mart plans dropped

By JENN KLEIN
03/18/2008

Plans are off for the new Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for north Chico. Wal-Mart representative Kevin Loscotoff said Monday the company canceled plans for what would have been a 242,000-square-foot retail supercenter at Highway 99 and Garner Lane. Wal-Mart notified the city of its decision Monday and will be formally withdrawing its application today, he said.

Wal-Mart is still pursuing plans for the expansion of its existing Forest Avenue store, expected to go before the Planning Commission at the beginning of April.

As first reported on ChicoER.com, Loscotoff said the decision not to go ahead with the new store was not because of any change in the local or regional economy, but because of a modification in the format of new Wal-Mart Supercenters.

"Under the new guidelines for our Wal-Mart Supercenter strategy, this project did not meet those guidelines. We are certainly disappointed, especially after the four years we have been working on the project," he said.

Following the announcement last year of plans to improve productivity and sales, Loscotoff said an internal company committee reviewed the north Chico store and did not reapprove the plans. He said the north Chico Wal-Mart is not the only store the company called off.

Part of the company's strategy included cutting back on the growth of its U.S. supercenters, dropping from the original plans of opening 265 to 270 supercenters this fiscal year to opening 190 to 200, according to a news release. Loscotoff said the company received more than 10,000 cards of support for a Chico supercenter — including cards supporting the south Chico supercenter — and still believes the land it was looking at is in an area of significant growth with a high desire for a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

"We recognize the demand and the desire to have the retail there; unfortunately, it just didn't meet the guidelines," he said.

When asked if Wal-Mart would explore different locations in Chico in the future, Loscotoff would only say the company will "always look at different opportunities and ways to support our customers."

"I think we're always exploring new opportunities to better serve our customers and we'll continue to do so. For right now, our expansion is our focus," he said.

A supercenter typically would have brought about 500 jobs, according to Loscotoff.

Jeff Farrar, the owner of the 20 acres Wal-Mart was looking at, said he's not yet sure what he will do with the property but has received other phone calls about his land, which is located outside of city limits.

"We have other retailers that are interested in the property and it's in the path of growth, so our strategy will be to I.D. the best use for that property and proceed in that direction," Farrar said Monday in a telephone interview.

"I still feel that retail is going to be the way that it develops," he added.

The Sunset Hills Golf Course was leasing the property from Farrar but he said it's been closed down as it "never made any money." The driving range will continue to stay open while he looks at other uses for the property.

In the called-off plans, the city would have annexed a 148-acre area between Highway 99 and The Esplanade. Wal-Mart would have gone at the northern end of the annexation area, on 18.56 acres of the property, leaving 20.2 acres for additional retail.

However, city planner Greg Redeker said there are still additional city staff costs involved in moving forward with the yet-unfinished environmental impact report for the north Wal-Mart and the additional retail. If Wal-Mart is no longer paying to proceed with the EIR, it won't move to a point where the city can certify it, he said.

"I'm fairly certain that means that entire thing is done, at least for now," Redeker said.

City planner Zach Thomas said the city does not have any other applications for the property.

Wal-Mart 'Green Store' Cuts Energy

By MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press
03.18.08                                         [back to top]

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will open its latest generation of energy-efficient test stores this week with a Las Vegas Supercenter that uses new cooling technology to cut overall energy use by up to 45 percent.

The Las Vegas store opening Wednesday builds on advances in earlier pilot stores that reduced energy use in areas including lighting, refrigeration and water flow.

The previous pilot stores in the Midwest cut energy use up to 25 percent compared to a typical Supercenter built in 2005, the year Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) launched a broad environmental program to reduce energy use and packaging waste and to sell more sustainable products.

Wal-Mart said the new Las Vegas store adds to those savings with a new cooling system based on water evaporation for total energy savings of between 35 percent and 45 percent.

Wal-Mart has said it is the biggest private user of electricity in the world and has huge potential to cut back on greenhouse gases from fossil fuels burned to create electricity. It aims to use technologies proven in the pilot stores to develop a prototype in 2009 for all new Supercenters that will be between 25 percent and 30 percent more energy efficient.

An outside engineering and efficiency expert said Wal-Mart's advances in saving energy, including the new Las Vegas store, are leading the field for big-box retailers.

"This is not just a baby step. This is a big step," said Terry Townsend, past president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

Townsend said Wal-Mart's pilot stores are important because they show other retailers how to use available technology to improve energy efficiency. Wal-Mart says it is sharing its lessons with retail industry groups.

The latest store is built specifically for the arid climate of Western states, where water evaporates faster than in the more-humid East.

It uses rooftop cooling towers to chill water that then runs in conduits under the floor of the store. The radiant cooling from the floor replaces traditional electricity-powered air conditioning.

The store also incorporates innovations from the previous pilot stores that include recycling heat from refrigerators and combining low-power LED lights in freezer cases with sensors that turn off those lights when no customers are around.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

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Residents hear critiques of big-box retailers

OAKLEY: Large, new stores are in direct conflict with plans to restore downtown, activists say

By Paula King
03/15/2008                                         [back to top]

A few weeks after Wal-Mart abandoned its plans to locate a Supercenter in Oakley, a local citizens group opposed to the megaretailer held a town hall meeting to discuss the impact of big-box development on the evolving city. The speakers at Thursday's meeting addressed community concerns about the proposed 77-acre commercial project where Wal-Mart was planning to move. They discussed the environmental review process and future public hearings surrounding the River Oaks Crossing shopping center. "It's not too late to include the citizens and taxpayers of Oakley in the process of deciding what kind of commercial growth we want in our community. Bigger is not necessarily better," Save Oakley Now spokesman Bob Caughron stated in a news release. The panel of speakers urged Oakley residents to get involved in the young city's impending commercial growth and hold public officials accountable for any related impacts. Land use attorney Mark Wolfe and Phil Tucker of California Healthy Communities Network spoke about how big-box development in Oakley could harm ongoing downtown revitalization efforts. According to Tucker, the development of big-box shopping centers and the redevelopment of Oakley's downtown represent two competing visions. He added that the area doesn't have enough potential shoppers to support both retail endeavors. "These plans overlap each other and what that means is they are drawing their primary shoppers from the same area," Tucker said. "The downtown development plan doesn't have much of a chance." Wal-Mart officials said that the Oakley Supercenter application was withdrawn because of the nation's sluggish economy and stagnant stock values. Wal-Mart has decided not to construct more than 140 planned stores. The Supercenter was expected to bring more than 450 new jobs and $700,000 annually in sales tax revenue. Meanwhile, city leaders are pushing forward with River Oaks Crossing by luring other major retailers to the site. According to Wolfe, Wal-Mart realized the demand is not strong enough in Oakley. "It still boils down to these competing visions and the delusion that it doesn't exist," he said to a crowd of area residents attending the forum at Vintage Parkway Elementary School. Wolfe mentioned several California cities that have banned superstores or imposed limitations on retailers like Wal-Mart. Among those cities are Los Angeles, Oakland, Turlock, Stockton and Vallejo, he said. As Save Oakley Now's land-use counsel, Wolfe asked residents to get involved in the public process for River Oaks. "What we can insist upon is that all that information is laid out in front of us," he said. Mark Gagliardi spoke as an Oakley resident and board member of the Contra Costa Central Labor Council. He said he is also interested in seeing the downtown successfully redeveloped. "I just think there is a smart way to do it," Gagliardi said. "We don't need to put up a big store that is going to take out the competition." Oakley resident and Delta Green Party member Paul Seger said Wal-Mart's way of doing business is un-American. He asked Oakley residents to demand accountability from local officials. "There are so many ways we can use this land," Seger said.

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Wal-Mart Director Buys 5,000 Shares

Associated Press
03.14.08                                                  [back to top]

NEW YORK - A director of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, bought 5,000 shares of stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday.

In a Form 4 filed with the SEC, James Breyer reported he bought the shares for $49.85 to $49.88 apiece on Tuesday. He reported buying the shares indirectly through a trust.

Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be reported within two business days of the transaction.

Wal-Mart Stores (nyse: WMT - news - people ) is based in Bentonville, Ark.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

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Wal-Mart Says $4 Drug Plan Saves $1B

Associated Press
03.14.08                                                      [back to top]

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, on Friday estimated its $4 generic prescription drug program saved customers more than $1 billion since it launched.

Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) began offering $4 for a one-month supply of many generic prescriptions in late 2006.

The company said the $4 prescriptions now represent about 40 percent of all filled prescriptions at Wal-Mart. Nearly 30 percent are filled without insurance.

Shares fell $1.25, or 2.5 percent, to $49.35 in morning trading.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press

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Wal-Mart Tweaks Store for Arab-Americans

By JEFF KAROUB
Associated Press
03.14.08                                                  [back to top]

DEARBORN, Mich. - Faten Saad knew she wasn't in a typical Wal-Mart when she saw an end-of-the-aisle display featuring Mamool.

Boxes of the date-filled, whole wheat cookie from the Middle East welcomed the 21-year-old Lebanon native into the international aisle of the new Wal-Mart store in this Detroit suburb known as the capital of Arab America. Aisle 3, which also features Eastern European and Hispanic food, represents many of the 550 items geared toward Arab-American shoppers in the store that opened last week.

It might be statistically tiny in a store with more than 150,000 items, but it's symbolically huge for the world's largest retailer as it seeks to change from a cost-is-everything monolith to one that customizes its stores to meet neighborhood needs.

Managers say they seek peace with the neighborhood's merchants - and vow not to undercut them on Middle Eastern specialties. But some experts and observers say Wal-Mart's well-planned launch in Dearborn is bound to shake up the buying and selling in a community that has long supported its own. Southeastern Michigan is home to an estimated 300,000 people who trace their roots to the Middle East.

"I have not heard of anything this tailored. It's inspiring to me as a shareholder," said Patricia Edwards, portfolio manager and retail analyst in the Seattle office of San Francisco-based investment manager Wentworth, Hauser & Violich, which has 537,000 shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. stock.

The Dearborn store also sells Arabic music and plans to offer Muslim greeting cards. But the modifications go beyond merchandise: It has 35 employees who speak Arabic - noted in Arabic script on their badges. The store also has hired a local Arab-American educator to teach the staff cultural sensitivity.

It's clear as soon as shoppers walk in that this isn't a typical Wal-Mart. Inside the grocery entrance are 22 produce tables filled with squash, beans and cucumbers common in Middle Eastern dishes. The section also features grains and vegetables popular among blacks and Hispanics, two other demographics with sizable populations living nearby.

"It's like a farmers' market," said Bill Bartell, the store manager who developed the international aisle with Tut's International Export & Import Co., the Dearborn-based distributor that handles the sourcing for many of the store's Middle-Eastern items.

"Because we did all this due diligence prior to moving into this area, we came to realize our clients really kind of liked this atmosphere, and they liked the variety that we can give them."

More than a year of studying the market and meeting with community groups was put to the test last fall, when Bartell and a Tut's executive began to work on what would become aisle 3. They set up an 80-foot-long counter in an empty warehouse and hauled out products - date-filled cookies, grape leaves, vacuum-packed olives, chick peas and a 97-ounce jar of olive oil imported from the Middle East. The men spent two weeks working on a way to present a new line of products.

As he recalled their effort, a few women in hijabs - traditional Muslim head scarves - inspected produce. One spoke in Arabic to Mohamad Atwi, the developmental store manager.

Bartell said the store aims to offer convenience - not a comprehensive selection of specialty products.

"It's very important that we have the variety of the Muslim, Hispanic items, local items, at a comparable price," he said. "If you go over to Warren (Avenue) where there's other ... small retailers, they have a variety that goes on and on and on."

At the Super Greenland Market, which Wal-Mart studied to come up with its new store, customers can find one whole side of an aisle with more than 20 different varieties of chick peas and fava beans.

"We have vendors that extend from here to the end of the planet," said Jamal Koussan, owner of Super Greenland. "We import directly. That puts us at a big advantage."

He said Wal-Mart doesn't concern him, but he is watching it. He tracked his store's sales on Wal-Mart's opening day and saw no dip.

"I'm not saying they will have no effect on our business but nothing that will threaten us, that will threaten our existence or threaten our bottom line," he said.

Still, the lure of everything under one roof could prove stronger than product depth for some who frequent Middle Eastern shops.

Saad, the college student who emigrated from Lebanon in 1990, marveled while shopping at Wal-Mart and plans to return.

"I don't think I would come all the way here just to get those things, but I'd pick them up on the way if I was already here doing my shopping," she said.

Warren David, a public relations and marketing specialist focusing on Arab-American and Islamic markets, called Wal-Mart's arrival bittersweet. He's happy for the steps it's taken, but "at the same time I can't help but think it's going to have some kind of impact on the local business community."

The Dearborn Wal-Mart is part of a two-year-old corporate effort to help sales by tailoring stores to local demographics, said spokeswoman Amy Wyatt-Moore at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. It targeted six groups: Hispanics, blacks, empty-nesters/boomers, affluent, suburban and rural shoppers.

Dearborn's store is designed to reflect its neighborhood, not serve as a national template for Arab-American shoppers, she said.

"We realize there are more than those six broad demographic groups around the country. In some places the result will be a unique store," Wyatt-Moore said.

Edwards, the analyst, says the Dearborn store is a good move for a company that historically has been better at the science, rather than the art, of retail.

"Wal-Mart is a little kinder and gentler than they were 10 years ago. They are fierce competitors ... but I don't think they're trying to do a scorched earth policy," she said.

"The trick for these local merchants is ... they're going to have to change how they operate in the face of this changing competition."

AP Business Writer Marcus Kabel in Bentonville, Ark., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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RAMAPO STOPS WALMART DEVELOPMENT

Joseph Feller
amtelwest                                                     [back to top]

MONSEY, N.Y.  It was Friday afternoon when the developer who had been intent on building a 215,000-square-foot Wal-Mart in this hamlet sent word to the town offices in Ramapo. The fax was terse, but its message clear: We will not continue to proceed with the development.

The news that the developer, and potentially Wal-Mart, had scrapped plans it had so diligently worked on gave observant Jews, who make up the bulk of the population here, reason to rejoice.

They had waged a modest yet unyielding campaign against the proposed store, which they feared would force too many outside influences into their insular world of Orthodox Judaism.

It also represented a political vindication of sorts for Christopher P. St. Lawrence, town supervisor of Ramapo, which encompasses Monsey, in the heart of Rockland County. He hung much of his re-election on a promise to keep the Wal-Mart out of Monsey. During his campaign, he mailed a flier to every home in Monsey, saying, Supervisor St. Lawrence opposes the Monsey Wal-Mart. Mr. St. Lawrence was elected to a fourth term in November.

Wal-Mart doesnt vote for the supervisor, said Rabbi Jacob Horowitz, one of Monseys most respected religious leaders. The people vote for the supervisor.

We work very hard to raise our families the right way, Rabbi Horowitz said. And the supervisor understood that preserving our lifestyle is something thats very important to us.

There were other issues that Mr. St. Lawrence said had prompted him to stand up against putting a Wal-Mart on Route 59, like the flood of traffic such a big store could bring to a two-lane highway that is already clogged much of the time, and its impact on the revitalized downtown section of Spring Valley, a village northeast of Monsey.

Were very pro-business here, Mr. St. Lawrence said. But it has to be the right business.

Wal-Mart says it has not yet formally given up on the project.

Philip H. Serghini, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, said that the company had placed the plan under review, weighing the costs of pushing it forward against its potential benefits.

To build here, Wal-Mart would have to overcome at least two obstacles: finding another developer and preparing a new environmental impact study. The town Planning Board rejected the one it received last June on the ground that the proposal to ease traffic on Route 59 with a combination of turning lanes and more traffic lights was inadequate.

Jerrold Bermingham, managing director of the National Realty and Development Corporation, which was to have built the store, did not respond to e-mail messages or phone calls left with him and his lawyer.

With about 28,000 residents and almost 200 synagogues squeezed into 2.2 square miles, Monsey feels at once crowded and neighborly, the type of place that seems immune to the modernity that surrounds it.

Many of the women do not drive, and their children attend the dozens of yeshivas, or private religious schools here. Among the most observant families, home computers are strictly forbidden.

These are not people who were schooled in the tactics of public protesting, or who even felt comfortable doing it, said Richard Lipsky, a spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, a coalition of small-business groups that helped residents here wage their battle against Wal-Mart. They never imagined they could beat a giant like Wal-Mart.

The retailer made numerous attempts to woo the Jewish community. Company representatives met with rabbis and agreed to conceal the covers of celebrity magazines featuring photographs of scantly clad movie and television stars to avoid offending Jewish patrons. Wal-Mart also hired a firm to send mailings in Yiddish to local homes, asking residents to suggest ways the company could improve the area.

A lot of us sent the mailing back to them with the words, No, thanks, written at the top, said a 36-year-old Hasidic man who has lived here for 18 years and who requested anonymity to keep with his religious tradition of modesty.

Then, the community hit back. Residents joined union workers for a rally in December 2006, and circulated petitions and ran ads in Yiddish and English every week for 32 weeks in a local newsletter, Community Connections. The ads warned of the additional traffic the store would attract and how it would expose their children to such unwelcome sights as bikinis and lingerie.

Very little money was collected or spent in the effort, said Jacob Guttman, 33, who is Hasidic. It was just a well-organized and carefully planned grass-roots campaign.

The rabbis, for their part, encouraged the faithful to speak up. When Wal-Mart offered to repair Monseys heavily used sidewalks and build others, the rabbis asked residents to write to local officials, saying they did not need new sidewalks.

We were determined to make Wal-Mart uncomfortable because by making them uncomfortable, we thought they would eventually leave, said Rabbi Horowitz, who is also the executive director of a social services agency here, the Community Outreach Center.

Were very strong believers that everything comes from the Almighty, he added. I think the Almighty realized that for our children to grow up in a beautiful community, for our traditions to be preserved, we couldnt have a Wal-Mart.

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Wal-Mart Ends Test of Linux in Stores

Associated Press
March 11th, 2008                    [back to top]

Wal-Mart Ends Test of Linux in Stores 20 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Computers that run the Linux operating system instead of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows didn't attract enough attention from Wal-Mart customers, and the chain has stopped selling them in stores, a spokeswoman said Monday.

"This really wasn't what our customers were looking for," said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien.

To test demand for systems with the open-source operating system, Wal-Mart stocked the $199 "Green gPC," made by Everex of Taiwan, in about 600 stores starting late in October.

Walmart.com, the chain's e-commerce site, had sold Linux-based computers before and will continue selling the gPC.

This was the first time they appeared on retail shelves.

Paul Kim, brand manager for Everex, said selling the gPC online was "significantly more effective" than selling it in stores.

Wal-Mart sold out the in-store gPC inventory but decided not to restock, O'Brien said. The company does not reveal sales figures for individual items.

Walmart.com now carries an updated version, the gPC2, also for $199, without a monitor. The site also sells a tiny Linux-driven laptop, the Everex CloudBook, for $399.

Linux software is maintained and developed by individuals and companies around the world on an "open source" basis, meaning that everyone has access to the software's blueprints and can modify them.

There is no licensing fee for Linux, which helps keeps the cost of the Everex PC low. Manufacturers have to pay Microsoft to sell computers with Windows preloaded.

Linux is in widespread use in server computers, but it hasn't made a dent in the desktop market. Surveys usually put its share of that market around 1 percent, far behind Windows and Apple Inc.'s OS X.

Smaller laptops like the CloudBook could provide an entree for Linux, since it runs well on systems with modest memory and hard drive capacity.

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Judge tosses out Wal-Mart secret life insurance lawsuit

By Kevin Graham,
St. Petersburg Times
March 11th, 2008                       [back to top]

A federal judge has dismissed a Hillsborough County man's lawsuit against Wal-Mart over a life insurance claim the company received when the man's wife died.

Friday, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. dismissed the suit filed by Richard Armatrout, because it failed to reach the $75,000 threshold for a civil complaint to go before a federal judge.

When Karen Armatrout, 50, died of cancer in 1997, Wal-Mart collected $72,820.30 from an insurance policy the retail giant had in her name. Armatrout's husband sued, saying the couple never knew about the policy and he received none of the payout.

Armatrout's attorney argued the lawsuit exceeded the $75,000 limit if punitive damages were included.

Karen Armatrout worked at a Wal-Mart pharmacy on Waters Avenue in Tampa and took a leave of absence when doctors diagnosed her with cancer.

Michael D. Myers, a Texas attorney representing Richard Armatrout, said Monday he anticipated the case would be thrown out because of the technicality. Before Moody's ruling, Myers filed Armatrout's lawsuit in Pasco County, along with a similar case for Pasco resident Wayne Atkinson. Myers said Wal-Mart also collected on a policy when Atkinson's wife, Rita, died.

Myers estimates Wal-Mart secretly insured about 350,000 employees for two years beginning in 1993. Wal-Mart officials said they dropped the policies by the start of 2000.

He has won settlements against Wal-Mart in Texas and Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, a judge approved a $5.1-million class-action settlement in a case brought by the estates of deceased Wal-Mart employees. A $10-million settlement was reached in Texas.

Myers is waiting to see if a Pasco County judge will grant his motion to give Armatrout's case class-action status for similar estate claims in Florida.

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Retail Retrenchment Hurts Malls

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO
03.10.08                                          [back to top]

The signs that smaller retailers are struggling are unavoidable at malls across America: "Going out of business" sales at many Wilsons Leather stores. "Up to 70 percent off" at KB Toys.

At the once-sizzling Paradise Valley Mall in Phoenix, the space once occupied by Bombay Co., the furniture chain that went bankrupt last year, is empty. Wilsons just finished liquidating its inventory. KB Toys, AnnTaylor and American Eagle feature bold posters advertising steep discounts.

"I don't think it brings much business when all these stores are closed," said Michelle Green, a sales clerk at Fred Meyer Jewelers.

Around the country, mall centers are starting to feel the recoil from a rapid expansion in recent years that allowed retailers to aim stores at almost every niche, from shoppers who wanted Talbots clothes for their children to those who craved Bombay's little wood tables.

Now, consumers who are closing their wallets amid rising gasoline prices and a housing slump are forcing specialty retailers to pare back their brands. While still healthy overall, mall centers in areas hardest hit by the housing downturn - like Paradise Valley - are suffering the most store shutdowns.

Retailers including AnnTaylor Stores Corp., Talbots Inc. and Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. have closed hundreds of stores so far this year. Gadget seller Sharper Image Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection last month and plans to shutter nearly half of its 184 stores.

That retrenchment, along with the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of catalog retailer Lillian Vernon Corp., marks the beginning of a wave of retail bankruptcies that's expected to go well beyond the home furnishings stores hurt by the housing malaise.

"This is economic Darwinism," said Dan Ansell, a partner at Greenberg Traurig LLP and chairman of its real estate operations division. "Those retailers and businesses that have a product that is desired by consumers will survive, and those who do not will not."

Unless the economy dramatically improves, Ansell believes retail bankruptcies this year could reach the highest level since the 1991 recession. More closings could leave gaping holes in the nation's retail centers, which have already seen average vacancy rates creep up to between 7 percent and 8 percent from 5 percent over the last six months, according to data from NAI Global, a commercial real estate services firm.

David Solomon, president and CEO of ReStore, NAI Global's retail division, expects the vacancy rate could hit 10 percent by the end of the year. Suzanne Mulvee, senior economist at Property & Portfolio Research, figures that vacancies could rise as high as 12.5 percent this year. Her figure includes retail spaces where tenants have defaulted on their rents.

Part of the problem, according to Mulvee, is that more retail space is coming to the market just as consumer demand is falling. Another 130 million square feet of retail space will become available this year, she predicts, on top of last year's 143 million. That is well above the average 100 million square feet added per year earlier in the decade.

As a result, markets like Phoenix, which had a retail boom, are expected to see the most dramatic increases in vacancies. Phoenix's rate is expected to more than double to 10 percent by the end of 2009 from 4.4 percent late last year, according to Property & Portfolio. In Kansas City, Mo., rates could rise to almost 17 percent by the end of 2009 from last year's 13.5 percent. In San Antonio, experts say the figure may hit 20.5 percent next year from last year's 17.4 percent.

Still, Solomon doesn't think the situation will be as dire as in 1991, when the savings and loan crisis hurt the entire country. Experts also say merchants are weathering downturns better because of new systems to control inventory and costs.

Nevertheless, consumers are seeing fewer stores that focus on specific niches, like apparel for women baby boomers or clothing for surf fans. That would differ from 17 years ago, when it was the department stores that felt the major shakeup as leveraged buyouts and fierce competition led to the demise of names like Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Woodward & Lothrop. But there's one common theme: the power of national discounters like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which helped seal the eventual demise of regional discount chains last time around. Now, the discounters' clout is hurting consumer electronics stores like CompUSA, which is closing most of its stores, and Circuit City Stores Inc., which posted dismal holiday sales.

Christina Avila, shopping at the Oak Park Mall in Kansas City, Mo. - which had more than half a dozen store vacancies - said she's cutting back because of the economy and spending more at places like Wal-Mart and Target.

"I'm more interested if they have clearance items," she said.

Michele Lipovitch of Phoenix said she only goes to the Paradise Valley mall twice a month.

"We have two kids. I have credit card debt I'm trying to pay off," said Lipovitch. "It's kind of scary because we keep hearing that it looks like we're going into a recession."

The industry pullback follows several years of rapid expansion and experimentation with a range of new store formats as retailers enjoyed robust consumer spending fueled by rising home values. But the sharp spending drop has made stores rethink how to expand their businesses.

Jewelry retailer Zale Corp. announced more closings last month, meaning it now plans to shutter almost 5 percent of its stores by the end of July. In January, Pacific Sunwear said it will close all 154 remaining Demo stores, which sell urban fashions. AnnTaylor is shutting down 13 percent of its stores and delaying a new store concept aimed at women boomers, while Talbots is closing its 78 children's and men's apparel stores to focus on its core middle-aged female customer. Macy's also has said it will close nine stores.

And Wilsons The Leather Expert is closing a majority of its 260 mall locations.

Analysts say they're watching to see if Circuit City closes any stores after posting a third-quarter loss and cutting its full-year profit outlook. Analysts also expect more store cutbacks at Sears Holdings Corp., which operates Kmart and Sears stores.

Some shoppers are not going to miss the casualties.

"They have nice clothes, nice urban wear, but their prices (are) a little high," said Tasha Burts, 35, of Demo at the Dolphin Mall west of downtown Miami. She walked out empty-handed.

Mall operators Taubman Centers Inc. and Simon Property Group say their top tenants - the department stores and other big chains that anchor most shopping centers - are in good financial shape.

Bill Taubman, chief operating officer of Taubman Centers, predicts more store closings and bankruptcies than last year, but doesn't think they will reach historic highs.

That will still mean a more limited selection for consumers, who until a few months ago had a plethora of choices, particularly when it came to furniture. Recent home furnishings casualties included Bombay and Levitz Furniture, which filed for bankruptcy in November and has been liquidating its inventory. Clothing stores, in a malaise since consumers see fashion spending as discretionary, could see widespread closures this year.

While the industry overall is experimenting less with new formats, Janet Hoffman, managing partner of the North American retail division of Accenture, expects the mood to be temporary.

"There is this undying belief in the retail industry that they have an idea that will work," Hoffman said, citing Abercrombie & Fitch Co.'s new lingerie chain Gilly Hicks. "A year or 18 months from now you will see new ones at play."

Associated Press Writers David Twiddy in Kansas City, Mo., Terry Tang in Phoenix and Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Could Asda be kicked out of Wal-Mart?

Telegraph
March 9th, 2008                             [back to top]

When Wal-Mart swooped to buy Asda in 1999 for £6.7bn analysts predicted that the arrival of the world's largest retailer would change the UK high street forever - sparking a savage price war and a wave of mega mergers.

But the doom-laden predictions of 1999 have proved wide of the mark. The combination of intense competition and planning restrictions have frustrated Wal-Mart's ambitious plans for Asda and the UK.

In fact, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that Wal-Mart president Lee Scott became so dismayed at the failure to crack the UK market and the constraints on future growth that last year he ordered a strategic review that could have seen Wal-Mart float a minority stake in Asda or even pull out of the UK entirely.

According to sources the strategic review has - for now - been shelved. Asda refused to comment.

But the revelation that Wal-Mart even considered pulling out of the UK will stun retail-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic and raise renewed questions about whether the UK is becoming less attractive to overseas investors.

It will also stir up the debate about over-regulation. The decision by the Competition Commission to bar Asda from buying Safeway particularly infuriated Wal-Mart and is thought to have originally sparked the debate about the future of its investment in Asda.

Asda has often been held up as an example of a successful overseas venture for Wal-Mart - which has had mixed results outside its home market. The American company pulled out of Germany in 2006 after an unsuccessful foray.

But despite the success, executives say Scott has become increasingly loath to invest large amounts of capital in the mature and competitive UK market - when potentially much greater returns can be generated in China, India and South America.

The flotation of a significant stake in Asda on the London Stock Exchange would have provided the UK business with well-needed capital to invest in opening new stores and developing new formats such as Asda Living, its non-food format or acquiring a convenience chain such as Somerfield. A separate float would also have helped to incentivise senior management.

An IPO would also put a price tag on Asda - helping Wall Street analysts put a value on Wal-Mart's wider international businesses, which the retailer believes are undervalued.

The move would not be unprecedented. Wal-Mart owns a 62 per cent stake in its Mexico business - with the remainder of the shares traded on the Mexico Stock Exchange.

Alongside the flotation of a stake, Wal-Mart is also believed to have looked at an outright sale - a move which would have freed up senior executives, and capital, to focus on growth markets such as China and India.

News of Wal-Mart's plans will send shockwaves through the Government. Wal-Mart was courted by Prime Minister Tony Blair prior to its acquisition of Asda. But Scott has made little secret of his dismay with UK planning and competition regulators - and in particular the decision to block Asda from buying Safeway in 2004.

Nine years after Wal-Mart bought Asda it is still number three in the UK, having failed to overtake J Sainsbury.

Since the acquisition there have been three separate Competition Commission inquiries into the grocery sector.

The latest investigation is due to be completed in May. In a recent submission Asda called for the "needs test" - which requires retailers to demonstrate demand for a new store - to be scrapped and for planning rules to be suspended in so-called "Tesco towns", a move that would allow it to build giant out-of-town superstores on greenfield sites

Should Scott return to his plans and decide to once again look at pulling out of the UK, it would not be the first time Wal-Mart has performed a dramatic U?turn on its plans to grow overseas.

Wal-Mart has expanded rapidly, and since opening its first store in Arkansas, nearly 30 years ago, it has become the world's biggest retailer, boosting its international business from 5 per cent of group sales in 1997 to almost a quarter today.

It has nearly 1,000 stores in Mexico and operates more than 3,000 retail units in 13 markets outside the continental US including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and the UK.

However, its overseas investments have not always gone according to plan. In December the retail giant increased its ownership of Seiyu, the leading supermarket and convenience stores operator in Japan from 50.9 per cent to 95.1 per cent.

Since Wal-Mart first started building a stake in Seiyu in 2002, the group has been unprofitable. It recently cut 450 management jobs there - equivalent to 7 per cent of Seiyu's work-force - and discounts offered in its store have failed to boost sales. Last month, Seiyu said last year's net loss would be double forecasts, at Y20.9bn (£101m).

Wal-Mart seems to be committed to Japan for now, having said a few months ago it was "proceeding with additional steps" to buy the remaining stake in Seiyu.

But although the world's most powerful retailer rarely admits defeat, it will withdraw from unprofitable markets, as it did with Germany and South Korea. It exited both of those loss-making markets in 2006, marking its first significant withdrawals since launching its international strategy in the 1990s as those two markets had caused Wal-Mart to post its first quarterly fall in profits for 10 years.

In Germany, Wal-Mart bought the 20,000 sq m megastores of the Verkauf chain but struggled in the competitive food markets against discounters such as Aldi and Lidl. Wal-Mart then went on to sell its stores to local partner Metro. In South Korea its hypermarket formula failed to appeal to local tastes

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Recall bid gains traction

the reporter.com
03/09/2008                                        [back to top]

Opponents of the recently-approved Wal-Mart store in Suisun decided Saturday to move forward with a recall effort against some members of City Council.

More than 40 people reportedly attended the community meeting, which was put on at Grace Baptist Church by a group calling itself Save Our Suisun. Those assembled decided in favor of a recall effort aimed at Suisun City Mayor Pete Sanchez, as well as council members Jane Day and Mike Hudson.

The other two council members, Mike Segala and Sam Derting, are not being included in the recall push because they are up for re-election in November.

Describing the group that came together on Saturday, Suisun Citizens' League member Dwight Acey said, "They were very, very energized."The group's main grievance is the council's unanimous approval of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, which is to be located at Highway 12 and Walters Road.

In a press release this week, opponents claimed that council members "disregarded public safety warnings by aviation experts and other land-use professionals when they approved the controversial project."

Acey said the intent is to file the necessary paperwork in the coming days and to begin gathering signatures "within a week or so." He added that the goal is to collect 3,000 signatures over the next month.

Note from Save Our Suisun: Please go to our website for future news: http://www.saveoursuisun.com

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Bills Give Labs Job of Finding Risks In Kids’ Products

By Gary McWilliams
and M.P. McQueen,
Wall Street Journal