BUSINESS BRIEFS
Wal-Mart helps Red Cross efforts
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Wal-Mart Hawaii said it donated a pallet of bottled water, along with 50 cleanup kits consisting of brooms, sponges and mops to the American Red Cross' efforts in Kona.
The donation was the second by Wal-Mart in Kona. On Sunday it gave a pallet of water to shelters set up by the Red Cross on the Big Island following the earthquakes. The company also gave the Red Cross on O'ahu bottled water to distribute at Honolulu International Airport on Sunday.
WAL-MART TO BUY $1 BILLION CHINA CHAIN
BEIJING — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will pay about $1 billion to buy a chain of 100 hypermarkets in China in a deal that could vault it ahead of competitors to become the country's biggest food and department store network, a news report said today.
Wal-Mart plans to buy the hypermarkets from Trust-Mart, a Taiwanese company, according to reports in The Asian Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, citing people close to the talks.
UNITEDHEALTH EXECS LEAVING
MINNEAPOLIS — Faced with an independent report that found widespread problems with the way UnitedHealth Group Inc. issued stock options, the nation's second-largest health insurer said its chairman and CEO will leave the company.
The company said Sunday that chairman and CEO William McGuire will leave the board immediately and leave the company no later than Dec. 1. Board member William G. Spears will resign, and General Counsel David J. Lubben will retire. The UnitedHealth shake-up adds to the list of corner-office victims of stock option backdating.
GAP LAUNCHING ONLINE SHOE SHOP
NEW YORK — Gap Inc., the leader in online sales among apparel specialty chains, plans to move beyond its brands to make its mark on one of the fastest-growing segments in e-commerce: shoes.
The San Francisco-based chain today is slated to begin testing Piperlime.com, a Web site with 100 shoe brands, from $24 flip-flops from surf-clothing brand Roxy to $900 boots from orthopedist/designer Taryn Rose. Gap will officially launch the site Nov. 1.
