QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Expectations were so low going in. This offered a ray of hope.”
Brian Yarbrough, Edward Jones & Co. analyst, on Target Corp.’s quarterly report Article, 1D
India’s Bharti hires ex-Wal-Mart exec
Bharti Enterprises, the outfit in India that split from its joint venture with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. last year, has hired Craig Wimsatt, formerly of Wal-Mart.
The Financial Times reported that Wimsatt joined Bharti Enterprises earlier this month as an adviser and will work for Chief Executive Officer Raj Jain. Wimsatt, a 19-year Wal-Mart veteran, had worked as chief operating officer with the Bharti and Wal-Mart joint venture before the companies split. He was responsible for the startup of Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in India.
Bharti Retail, a subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises, recently showcased its distribution center in Chandigarh to officials from British multinational retailer Tesco and French multinational retailer Carrefour.
Wal-Mart saw a 21 percent drop in earnings per share in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 and a 3.2 percent drop in its fiscal 2014 year-end earnings, in part because of the cost of disengaging with Bharti in India.
Wal-Mart plans to set up its own retail stores in India, Asia’s third-largest economy, though it will require Wal-Mart to find another local partner, as required by India’s foreign-investment rules.
J.C. Penney ekes out 4th-quarter profit
NEW YORK - J.C. Penney’s turnaround seems to be getting some legs.
The department-store retailer reported Wednesday that it swung to a small profit in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 from a huge loss a year ago. It also reported its first quarterly gain in a key revenue figure in more than two years.
The company also had positive news going forward: Penney said it expects that revenue at stores open at least a year, the key revenue measurement, will increase 3 percent to 5 percent in the current quarter.
Investors were encouraged by the results, pushing shares up nearly 5 percent in trading after the market closed, when the results were announced. The shares closed Wednesday at $5.96.
Penney reported a profit of $35 million, or 11 cents a share, in the three-month period ended Feb. 1. That compares with a loss of $552 million, or $2.51 per share, in the year-ago period.
Revenue slipped 2.6 percent to $3.78 billion.
Excluding a tax benefit and other items, Penney had a loss of $206 million, or 68 cents per share, in the quarter. Analysts had expected a loss of 81 cents on revenue of $3.84 billion.
U.S. said to probe bitcoin site’s closure
The office of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating possible criminal violations tied to the shutdown of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest exchange for bitcoin transactions, two people familiar with the matter said.
The shuttering of Mt. Gox comes after months in which the digital currency’s price soared and it attracted increased attention from investors and customers, as well as scrutiny from U.S. regulators over possible money laundering and fraud.
Bharara’s office has requested documents from businesses that provide bitcoin services and the FBI is reviewing the matter, said the people, who requested anonymity because the matter isn’t public. One of the sources said the matter is in its preliminary stages and isn’t yet a formal investigation.
Reports that hackers may have pilfered more than $390 million in bitcoin from Mt. Gox prompted companies from San Francisco to London as well as their industry group, the Bitcoin Foundation, to assure bitcoin users that their funds won’t disappear because of theft or mismanagement.
Jennifer Queliz, a spokesman for Bharara, would neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.
Exports off, Mexico’s trade gap a surprise
Mexico posted a surprise trade deficit in January, the widest since October 2008, as exports fell, signaling that the economy is struggling to rebound from the lowest growth in four years. The peso extended its decline.
Mexico swung to a $3.2 billion trade gap from a revised $1.6 billion surplus in December, the national statistics agency said Wednesday in a preliminary report on its website. The median forecast of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a surplus of $314 million. Exports dropped 1 percent from a year earlier, falling for the first time since May, and imports increased 0.3 percent.
The government expects Latin America’s second largest economy to grow 3.9 percent this year, rebounding from a 1.1 percent expansion in 2013 that was the slowest since 2009, as a stronger U.S. economy fuels Mexico’s exports.
The peso extended its loss after Wednesday’s report, dropping 0.4 percent to trade at 13.28 per U.S. dollar in Mexico City.
Exports in January were probably hurt by bad weather in the U.S. and sales are likely to improve in coming months, said Pedro Uriz, a strategist at Grupo Financiero BBVA Bancomer SA in Mexico City.
- Bloomberg News
Icahn calls reins at eBay ‘dysfunctional’
Activist investor Carl Icahn escalated his attack on eBay Inc. Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe and the company’s board Wednesday, calling its governance “dysfunctional” and riddled with conflicts.
Icahn, the billionaire who last month proposed that eBay spin off its PayPal unit, sent his second letter to shareholders in three days, highlighting the competing interests of directors Marc Andreessen and Scott Cook.
In its response to the first letter Monday, eBay said Icahn was “mudslinging.”
“There is no question that they are accomplished and value-driven, but we believe the primary problem, among other things, is that they appear to be value driven for themselves,” Icahn wrote, repeating his call for investors to vote for two new directors and support a separation of eBay and PayPal. “Let’s end this charade.”
Shares of eBay Inc. rose $1.19, or 2 percent, to close Wednesday at $57.34.
- Bloomberg News
Business, Pages 26 on 02/27/2014