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San Antonio — The Progressive Retailers Organization was at the Westin La Cantera Hill Coun
Mountain View, Calif. — Best Buy’s digital chief Stephen Gillett has left the retailer to join Symantec as COO.
Gillett, the former chief information officer for Starbucks, joined Best Buy in March as digital and global business services president, with responsibility for e-commerce and digital strategies. His appointment, under former CEO Brian Dunn, was designed to boost Best Buy’s multichannel capabilities amid growing competition from Amazon.com and other online-only retailers.
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Minneapolis — Best Buy has extended founder Dick Schulze’s deadline to submit a buyout bid to February.
Schulze’s previous deadline to present a formal acquisition proposal was this Sunday, after Best Buy’s board extended the original mid-November cutoff by one month.
The retailer’s board said the extension, to Feb. 28, was granted so that Schulze and his backers could include Best Buy’s holiday season and full-year results in their due diligence and acquisition offer.
Maybe it is because we at TWICE are closing our Dec. 17 print edition today, which features our annual Retail Year-End Wrap Up, but we’d like to tip our cap to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for its coverage of Best Buy this year.
Yes, it is unusual for one media outlet to praise another, but the coverage the Star Tribune has done, and continues to do such as its report today on Dick Schulze’s impending bid on Best Buy, has been notable.
Minneapolis — Former Best Buy chairman Dick Schulze is expected to make a formal $5 billion to $6 billion bid this week to buy the company he founded.
According to a report in Best Buy’s hometown Minneapolis Star Tribune, Schulze has lined up financing from an assortment of bankers and private equity investors and will submit a formal proposal to the retailer’s board before a hard deadline this Sunday.
Mr. Hubert Joly
CEO
Best Buy
Dear Mr. Joly,
I know you are working hard to turn Best Buy around, and I hope you succeed. I’m a technology enthusiast and in the past have spent many hours and much money at Best Buy. But, as you well know, there is a lot that needs to change.
Minneapolis – Best Buy will have extended store hours through Dec. 27.
Locations are opening two hours earlier Monday through Saturday, at 8 a.m., and closing two hour later, at 11 p.m., excluding Christmas Eve.
Stores will also open two hours earlier on Sunday, at 9 a.m., and close three hours later, at 10 p.m., excluding the Sunday before Christmas.
In addition, the No. 1 CE chain will continue its weekly holiday price promotions. This week’s specials include a 32-inch, 720p Insignia LED TV and a 7-inch, 8GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 each for $200.
Minneapolis – Best Buy’s outgoing chief financial officer Jim Muehlbauer attributed the company’s 97 percent drop in third-quarter operating income to store closures and lower comp sales, but projected that the rate of decline would ease this period.
Minneapolis – Best Buy reported a $13 million loss from continuing operations for its fiscal third quarter.
That compares with net earnings from continuing operations of $173 million for the prior year’s fiscal third quarter.
Net sales slipped 3.5 percent to $10.8 billion for the three months, ended Nov. 3, and comp-store sales declined 4.3 percent.
Minneapolis – Best Buy has renewed its contract with the American International Group (AIG), which has been its exclusive provider of extended service plans under the Geek Squad brand.
The new multi-year agreement also extends to other services-related contracts sold through Best Buy’s multichannel distribution system in the U.S.
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