Prof Phil Blythe, chairman of the IET transport policy panel, which produced the report, said: “We hear a lot about the environmental benefits achieved as a result of working from home. However, on closer inspection it does appear that any environmental benefits are marginal.”
Princeton Shopping Center's new ownership plans to keep up with community atmosphere - NJ.com
PRINCETON BOROUGH — The president of the company poised to buy the Princeton Shopping Center said the firm has no plans to mess with success.
“This is a very well-established part of the Princeton community and its vibrancy,” said Jodie McLean, president and chief investment officer of Edens, a South Carolina company.
“The things we will focus on here are community events, consistency and a commitment to continue that love of community. Our own values feel very aligned with the history and current operators. We are community oriented, quality-driven and the classic, mid-century architecture of the shopping center needs to be celebrated.”
Shopkeepers in the North Harrison Street center have been told Edens is the new owner, taking over from George Comfort & Sons. Sitting in the shopping center’s Bon Appetit cafe on Friday, McLean would not confirm or deny the impending sale but said there would be a “formal announcement” about the shopping center in the first week of June. She also declined to put a price tag on such an acquisition.
She did say there would be no plans for a second floor and denied the company has any ties to a French ownership concern. The 255,000-square-foot mall has about 50 ground-level shops and other businesses in a rectangular layout with a large, open-air courtyard. It last underwent a major renovation in 2007 and is about 60 years old.
“We want to enhance small gathering places, like the European Bistro,” McLean said, pointing out the customers who walked through the shopping center’s landscaped commons.
“We have known about this shopping center for 10 years and it absolutely fits in with the kind of shopping centers we have on the East Coast. A typical customer for us would be proud to be a Princetonian and would be part of a family community.”
Looking to expand its reach into New Jersey and the New York Metro area, Edens currently has 130 retail centers, two-thirds of them located between Boston and the District of Columbia. The remaining third are in the Charlotte-Atlanta-Miami areas. A center in Sewell and another in Closter are the only two New Jersey holdings owned by Edens, which has been in business since 1966.
A number of store owners in the shopping center expressed concern over the sale when they learned about it through letters they were required to sign acknowledging there would be a change of ownership. No one saw it coming.
“We love the community orientation of the Princeton Shopping Center,” said McLean. “I think they will find there is a very consistent philosophy with what we are doing as retailers with what they are doing.”
McClean also said that having a supermarket such as McCaffrey’s as the anchor helps attract foot traffic and keeps all of the stores and businesses supplied with customers.
“People make two to three trips a week to a supermarket,” she said.
Other businesses include a hardware store, a dress boutique, a Mexican restaurant, a gym, a gourmet shop, and an outdoor sporting goods store. Longtime owners George Comfort & Sons did not return calls about the sale of the shopping center.
Almost every shopkeeper contacted about the sale praised the current ownership.
Shopping footfall down 12.6% in April - Management Today
By Rebecca Burn-Callander Monday, 21 May 2012
High streets across the UK have had their worst April for more than two years as heavy rain shrinks consumer footfall.
According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC)/Springboard-ACTM Footfall Monitor (quite a mouthful, that), rain has prompted the biggest shopping downturn since 2009. High street custom is down 6.4% in the first quarter from February 2012, and footfall at out-of-town shopping centres has dropped 2% year on year.
The only hubs of capitalism to have benefited from the wet weather are the so-called indoor high street shopping centres. Presumably because drenched shoppers needed somewhere to shelter from the rain…
This is dire news for UK retailers, where more than one in 10 premises are lying empty. Worst hit is Scotland, where shopper numbers are down 12.6% for the quarter. Wales was the only region to see a lift in footfall at 0.6%. But then they are used to rain in the valleys (there are 40 different Welsh words for the stuff, after all).
Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium director general, said: ‘Essentially, consumers lack confidence, disposable incomes are still dropping and fewer people are shopping for anything that isn't essential.’
Let’s just hope that the sun shines on the upcoming long Diamond Jubilee weekend, eh?
Phone addicts keep shopping fixes alive - Sydney Morning Herald
CBD
Hoping for a hit … Woolworths's digital multi-channel expert, Penny Winn. Illustration: John Shakespeare
If you thought Australian retailers were being bypassed by online-oriented consumers who were no longer under their grip, think again.
Woolworths's digital multi-channel expert, Penny Winn, told a Trans-Tasman business lunch yesterday how smartphone users had become increasingly fixated by their devices and that shopping was a natural addition to their use.
Noting how 1.6 million people had downloaded the Woolies phone app, Winn said smartphones had become a part of our make-up as if we were addicted to them.
''I guess the one thing about these things is that it's almost like a heroin hit,'' she said.
Nervous pause. ''Not that I've ever had it.''
WAY WITH WORDS
The chief executive of James Hardie, Louis Gries, was careful not to provide too many comments yesterday that could potentially be taken out of context or paraphrased.
''I'm kinda anti-Asia,'' said Gries, about his aversion to selling newly-developed fibre cement products in the region.
''Because everything commoditises so fast in Asia. That's kinda why we pulled out looking at Korea and a few other countries,'' he said at the group's fourth-quarter results briefing in Sydney.
POSITIVE THINKING
The chief executive of Qantas, Alan Joyce, emphasised the positives yesterday after he announced the retrenchment of 500 jobs at the airline's two Melbourne heavy maintenance bases.
''This is a positive story about what Qantas is doing … we should be getting all the support we can in order to maximise the amount of jobs we maintain here in Australia,'' he said.
Joyce urged unions to ''emphasise the positives and stop attacking the Qantas brand and … stop crying wolf about safety and offshoring''.
However, Joyce said ''we know there will be disappointment amongst those workers directly affected, their families and their colleagues''.
SEMINAR SAVIOUR
A last-ditch attempt has been made to save one endangered species from extinction - the free ASX Investor Hour. The Australian Shareholders' Association yesterday said it was ''working furiously'' to keep the monthly face-to-face seminar going and rebadge it as the ASA Investor Hour.
In response to the Australian Securities Exchange's plans to turn the two-decade old event (held in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne) into an online ''webinar'' from July, the ASA chief executive, Vas Kolesnikoff, said he hoped the stock exchange would ''support our efforts in investor education''.
''I'm looking for some small support from the ASX and others to keep advertising the ASA Investor Hour on their website,'' he said.
The ASX says it plans to ''professionally record presentations from industry experts on a range of topics'' from July.
''And it will enable all interested investors with access to a computer to view the presentations at their convenience, including viewing interstate presentations that may not have been previously available to them,'' it said in an email to CBD. The ASX's communications manager, Matthew Gibbs, said: ''The ASX would have no issue with what the ASA is proposing.''
MORE IN THE TANK
Oil Search director Dr Ziggy ''Strangelove'' Switkowski has found a few extra beans in his pocket to take advantage of the recent 13 per cent dip in the share price of the Papua New Guinean oil and gas company.
A change of directors' notice filed by the company yesterday showed a super fund, which he is a beneficiary of, outlaid $507,750 to snap up 75,000 Oil Search shares at $6.77 each. This lifted the former Telstra chief executive's stake to 175,000 shares.
JOBS FOR THE BOYS
The former Commonwealth Bank chief executive Sir Ralph Norris shared his insights on ''the Australian experience'' to a New Zealand business lunch yesterday, where he hit out at the ''boys' club'' approach to employing company directors and executives.
According to a report in the New Zealand version of BusinessDay, Sir Ralph told a Global Women and Trans-Tasman function in Auckland that over 60 per cent of Australian university graduates were female.
''Why would any business ignore the most important resource and, more importantly, quality people?'' he said.
Sir Ralph said the ''let's talk about rugby, let's go have a beer'' attitude had been entrenched in corporate culture for a long time.
Got a tip? srochfort@fairfax.com.au
Efinancial Wholesale Sales Contest Winners Announced, Two Deserving Life Insurance Brokers Awarded a Dream Vacation - YAHOO!
Efinancial Wholesale, a leading online life insurance wholesaler, is proud to announce the winners of the First Quarter-2012 Efinancial Sales Incentive. The well deserved prizes were awarded to both an Efinancial call center agent and an individual producer.
Bellevue, Wash. (PRWEB) May 21, 2012
Efinancial Wholesale, a leading online life insurance brokerage, proudly announces the winners of their latest sales contest. The First Quarter-2012 Efinancial Sales Incentive proved to be a great success, motivating top Efinancial life insurance agents to compete for a chance to win one of two dream vacations.Originally established in 2003, Efinancial Wholesale has since revolutionized the life insurance industry. Today Efinancial Wholesale is widely recognized as an innovator in the field of online life insurance sales. Offering member agents access to a wide breadth of products, coupled with cutting edge technology; Efinancial Wholesale equips their family of brokers with the tools and resources necessary to excel in today’s modern business climate.
The Efinancial Wholesale First Quarter-2012 Sales Incentive began on Tuesday, January 3, and ended Saturday, March 31. During the contest, Efinancial life insurance brokers competed for a chance to win one of two tropical vacations. Call centers competed for one trip, while the family of Efinancial individual producers competed for a separate dream vacation. Each winner received: roundtrip airfare, an all-inclusive resort package for 4 days and 3 nights and transportation to and from the airport, for themselves and a guest. Each winner was given the opportunity to select either Cabo San Lucas, Mexico or the Bahamas for their dream vacation destination.
Agents and call centers competed to win contest raffle tickets based upon specific sales goals.
The Efinancial Wholesale team provided standings and updates throughout the life of the contest. Winners were then announced through a video recorded drawing on April 3, the results of which were posted on the Efinancial Wholesale Blog. Christopher B. was the call center winner and Michael G. took home the individual producer prize. Both Christopher and Michael posted impressive sales numbers, throughout the first quarter, and were handsomely rewarded for their efforts.
“We are pleased with the results of the First Quarter-2012 Sales Incentive,” said Pete Kalasountas, Director of Efinancial Wholesale. “The entire Efinancial Wholesale team got in the spirit of the competition. Both winners worked hard throughout the contest and it’s our pleasure to reward their efforts.”
The Efinancial Wholesale management team is committed to nurturing a healthy, positive work environment. Quarterly sales incentives are held to reward top performers and acknowledge hard work and dedication. Plans are already underway for the Second Quarter-2012 Efinancial Sales Incentive. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements from the Efinancial Wholesale team, as they explore new ways to motivate and encourage success among their growing family of top producing life insurance brokers.
If you would like to learn more about Efinancial Wholesale life insurance services, visit them online at http://www.efinancialwholesale.com or call 1.800.648.9504.
About Efinancial Wholesale
Efinancial Wholesale is a full service online wholesale life insurance brokerage. Offering a comprehensive life insurance framework, Efinancial Wholesale provides their community of life insurance brokers with resources and technology to remain competitive in the life insurance industry. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Efinancial is a licensed broker in all 50 states with access to the top-rated life insurance carriers in the market.
Sara Sonnen
Efinancial Wholesale
1.800.648.9504
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