Payless signs shoe diva amid layoffs, restructuring
Payless ShoeSource is adding some showbiz muscle, just as it wraps up a corporate restructuring that cost up to 70 people their jobs this week.
The Topeka-based company announced Wednesday that it had signed Star Jones, co-host of ABC's "The View" talk show, to serve as the company's first "chief of consumer style." Financial terms were not disclosed.
Known as "the Diva of Shoes," Jones will serve as Payless' voice to consumers and share her fashion and trend insights with the company.
The news came after 60 to 70 Payless employees were laid off Monday, including 50 at the Topeka headquarters. The company has laid off nearly 200 employees in three phases since November as part of a planned reorganization that is expected to save the company about $18 million.
Retail: S&P 500 drops Kmart stock amid rating cuts by agencies
Shares of Kmart Corp. sank below $2 on Wednesday as credit agencies cut its debt ratings again and the S&P 500 index dropped the stock. Amid the financial turmoil, Kmart officials refused to release any new information regarding the company's future, further raising the specter of bankruptcy.
Eric Beder, a senior vice president and retailing analyst for Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co. Inc., called Kmart's silence "spooky."
Kmart has a store and distribution center in Lawrence.
Economy: Reports point to progress
Consumer inflation slowed to 1.6 percent in 2001, just half the increase of the previous year, in one of the few benefits from the recession.
The modest advance in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index, a closely watched inflation gauge, came after consumer prices jumped 3.4 percent in 2000, the largest increase in a decade, the government reported Wednesday.
In December, industrial activity dipped 0.1 percent after a steep 0.4 percent drop the month before. The smaller decline led some economists to say manufacturing could be on the mend.
In a third report, businesses reduced their inventories of unsold goods by 1 percent in November even as sales fell 1.4 percent, the Commerce Department said.
Automaker: GM posts profit but cuts bonuses, profit sharing
For the first time since 1993, hourly workers in the United States will not receive a profit-sharing check from General Motors Corp., even though the world's biggest automaker posted a profit of nearly $1.5 billion for 2001.
Bonuses to executives and enhanced variable pay for eligible U.S. and Canadian salaried employees also were cut at the company.
GM reported Wednesday it earned $255 million, or 60 cents a share, in the last three months of 2001, down 58 percent from a profit of $609 million, or $1.15 a share, a year earlier.
Earnings: J.P. Morgan takes hit from Enron, Argentina woes
Hammered by loans to Argentina and the bankrupt Enron Corp. that have gone bad, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. on Wednesday reported a large loss for the fourth quarter. The results were far below analysts' estimates.
The financial giant was the latest bank to be hurt by problems in Argentina, which has said it would default on its foreign debts to try to stabilize its economy.
Earlier this week, FleetBoston Financial Corp. took the unusual step of postponing its fourth-quarter earnings report until it could sort out its full exposure to Argentina.
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