Business Desk

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The New York Sun

RETAIL


WAL-MART INTRODUCES ITS OWN CLOTHING LABEL: METRO 7 LINE


Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s largest retailer, is introducing its own brand of urban apparel for women to win fashion-conscious shoppers.


The Metro 7 line will be Wal-Mart’s first exclusive brand in four years. It will be marketed to women 25 to 40 years old and is being rolled out in 500 stores and online, the company’s chief marketing officer, John Fleming, said in an interview yesterday in New York. It features jeans, velvet blazers, and silk shirts priced from about $10 to $30. “This is positioned as a premium brand within Wal-Mart,” Mr. Fleming said. “We have a customer that is very interested in fashion and takes a great deal of pride in their personal style and we haven’t really had an offering for them.” Wal-Mart is adding more fashionable merchandise to win affluent consumers and compete with Target, which has gained sales with offerings from designers including Isaac Mizrahi. Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott said last month that he wants the company’s clothing to appeal to higher-income shoppers.


The retailer is “doing a better job of getting better-looking mid-priced and some premium-priced product in the store,” said Todd Jones, an analyst at PNC Advisors in Philadelphia, which has $50 billion in assets including Wal-Mart shares. “The presentation is getting better.”


– Bloomberg News


SALES JUMP 4% IN SEPTEMBER


Sales at American retailers jumped 4% in September, beating analysts’ estimates, as two hurricanes sent shoppers to discount chains for supplies and lifted gasoline prices. Excluding gasoline, sales at stores open at least a year climbed about 3.5%, the International Council of Shopping Centers said yesterday. Both figures beat the 3% gain predicted by the ICSC, a New York-based trade group that tracks results at about 75 chains including Target and Saks. Sales this month will rise about 3%, the group said.


– Bloomberg News


FINANCIAL SERVICES


CITIGROUP NAMES WILLIAM RHODES AS PRESIDENT


Citigroup named a senior vice chairman, William Rhodes, as president of two of its subsidiaries.


Mr. Rhodes, 70, was appointed president and chief executive officer of Citibank N.A. and president of Citicorp Holdings, the company said yesterday in a statement. He will continue to serve in his current roles as senior vice chairman of the parent company, chairman and CEO of Citicorp Holdings, and chairman of Citibank. A 48-year veteran of the company, Mr. Rhodes took a leading role in the restructuring of Latin America’s debt in the 1980s and 1990s, arranging financing for countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. He is also first vice chairman at the Institute of International Finance, an association of financial institutions created in response to the international debt crisis in 1983.


– Bloomberg News


WINE


WINE COMPANY REPORTS HIGHER PROFIT


ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Constellation Brands, the world’s biggest wine company, said yesterday its second-quarter profit edged up 2.3%, lifted by higher sales of wine and its December acquisition of the Robert Mondavi company. Quarterly income grew to $79.97 million, or 34 cents a share, after preferred dividend payments in the three months ended August 31 compared with $78.16 million, or 35 cents, in the same quarter last year.


– Associated Press


IN BRIEF


United Airlines parent UAL said it will receive $3 billion in financing arranged by JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup to help the carrier exit bankruptcy in February … Hedge funds such as Atticus Capital are betting that Archipelago and the Nasdaq will dominate the business of American stock trading as markets combine. Atticus raised its stake in Archipelago by 20% since June, according to a regulatory filing last week … American accounting regulators found deficiencies in about 6% of public-company audits they reviewed by Deloitte & Touche, underscoring the challenges still facing the accounting industry four years after Enron’s collapse … The American housing market may have peaked and regions such as southern Florida and Las Vegas may see a “substantial reduction” in condominium values, the chief executive of Countrywide Financial, Angelo Mozilo, said … Federal Reserve policy makers must prevent an “inflation virus” from disrupting the American economic and financial system, Dallas Fed Bank President Richard Fisher said.


– Bloomberg News


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