IN BRIEF
NEW YORK
Retail group offers tepid holiday outlook
The National Retail Federation, usually bullish about holiday sales, predicts a 1 percent decline in total sales to $437.6 billion for November and December combined.
The projection from the world's largest retail trade group comes amid forecasts that U.S. retailers saw a key measure of sales drop in September for the 13th month in a row compared with a year earlier.
"We just don't see a sharp turnaround in consumer sentiment and spending until employment and income look a lot better," National Retail Federation chief economist Rosalind Wells said on Monday. "Shoppers are going to remain very frugal."
The federation's figures exclude sales from restaurants, gasoline, autos and online business; they include low-price retailers, department stores, grocery stores and specialty stores.
Last year, the Washington-based federation issued a 2.2 percent growth forecast in mid-September just as the financial meltdown ballooned. The trade group decided not to offer a reduced estimate because the spending climate was deteriorating so quickly that forecasters couldn't be accurate. The industry ended up having the weakest holiday season -- when compared with the previous year -- since at least 1967, when the U.S. Commerce Department started collecting retail sales data.
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
Report says bank will tap emergency leader
Bank of America Corp. plans to select an emergency CEO this week in case Ken Lewis steps down before the end of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Last week, the bank said Lewis plans to retire Dec. 31. Bank of America's board has created a six-member committee of directors to find Lewis' successor.
But the planning for an emergency replacement for Lewis, who faces possible legal problems over the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co., started before the bank announced Lewis' retirement, the Journal reported, citing someone familiar with the matter.
MOLINE, Ill.
Union workers ratify six-year pact at Deere
Deere & Co. said members of the United Auto Workers union have ratified a new six-year contract covering about 9,500 workers -- or roughly 17 percent of the company's work force -- and 17,000 retirees.
The world's largest maker of farm machinery said on Sunday it had been notified by the union of the ratification of the agreement, which takes effect Monday and expires Oct. 1, 2015. Contract terms weren't immediately available.
Deere has been battered by the slumping global economy, which has depressed sales of its tractors, bulldozers and other products. Although the company has laid off hundreds of workers since the economic downturn worsened late last year, it has avoided the sort of large-scale job cuts other large manufacturers have made.
NEW YORK
Coach sues Target over bags it says are copies
Coach Inc. is suing low-price retailer Target Corp. over bags the luxury handbag maker says too closely resemble its own designs.
Coach wants Target to stop selling the bags and pay an undetermined amount in damages, injunctive relief and attorney fees, the New York-based company said in a complaint it filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The bags in question resemble Coach's Ergo bags, launched in 2008 and marketed as ergonomically correct, and its Signature Patchwork bags, which have patches in different fabrics and also were introduced in 2008, Coach said.
Target began selling handbags this summer with "exact and/or confusingly similar reproductions of Coach's Ergo designs and Signature Patchwork designs," Coach claims.
DETROIT
Executive team remade again by Chrysler chief
With sales down sharply and pressure to start generating cash before government loans run out, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne shook up his executive team Monday, replacing two of his brand managers after just four months and splitting Dodge into car and truck units.
The changes show Marchionne's penchant for moving quickly and demanding performance, industry analysts say. But it's also a sign that all is not well inside the company's sprawling headquarters complex in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills.
Speed is crucial for Marchionne, who also runs Italy's Fiat Group SpA. It will be at least 18 months before Chrysler can launch a new car lineup based on smart, fuel-efficient Fiat designs. Until then, the third-largest U.S. car maker must survive with its current shaky lineup.
NEW YORK
Supper's over: End comes for Gourmet
Condé Nast Publications is closing Gourmet, the nation's oldest food magazine, and three other money-losing titles as the high-end publisher tries to weather a devastating advertising slump.
In addition to Gourmet, which had a circulation of 980,000 last year, the publisher is closing Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie, a parenting magazine. Earlier in the year it killed publication of Portfolio, a business magazine, and Domino, a lifestyle title.
In a staff memo, Condé Nast CEO Charles Townsend said the closures were required "to navigate the company through the economic downturn and to position us to take advantage of coming opportunities."
Ford said to seek suitor for Volvo brand
Ford Motor Co., seeking to sell its money-losing Volvo unit, is negotiating with a U.S.-based bidder for the brand and aims to narrow the talks to one potential buyer this month, said a person familiar with the process.
The U.S. bidder, known as the Crown group, is led by Michael Dingman, a Ford director from 1981 to 2002, son James Dingman and Shamel Rushwin, a former manufacturing and labor executive at the automaker, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the process is private.
Ford, the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy, is shedding international luxury lines to focus on its namesake brand as it seeks to become profitable by 2011. Crown, which entered the talks about two months ago, is offering less than the $2 billion bid by Geely Holding Group Co., the person said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
They'll fry away: New ads for Pizza Hut wings
Want some wings with that pie? Pizza Hut is banking on it, with new marketing for its chicken wings, now sold in about half the chain's 6,200 U.S. restaurants.
Pizza Hut launched national ads for the WingStreet brand on sports and prime-time TV on Saturday.
Other pizza chains offer wings and other side items to boost customer checks, and rival Domino's Pizza Inc. has aggressively promoted oven-baked sandwiches and pasta-stuffed bread bowls as meal options. Dallas-based Pizza Hut started offering pasta in April 2008, ringing up sales of nearly $500 million in the first year. The chain's goal is to make its pasta a $1 billion a year business.
But it has put the WingStreet moniker on store signs. Since Pizza Hut launched WingStreet in 2003, it has sold more than 1 billion wings, which now go for $6.49 to $6.99 per box of eight to 10.
