InnerWorkings to Oversee Preferred Hotels & Resorts’ Branded Collateral, Magazine

After months of uncertainty about a border-adjusted tax, retail CEOs are renewing efforts to quash the idea. Executives are planning to host a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday to reinforce their opposition to the tax policy, which is a centerpiece of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s agenda. Ryan’s plan would replace the existing corporate income tax with a 20 percent levy on U.S. companies’ domestic sales and imports. Exports would be excluded. The 10-person group that’s meeting with Mnuchin includes chief executive officers from both retail and consumer-product companies, according to Brian Dodge, senior executive vice president for public affairs for the Retail Industry Leaders Association. The lineup includes department-store chain J.C. Penney Co., apparel maker VF Corp. and battery producer Energizer Holdings Inc., he said. click Read More below for more of the story

The Home Depot® reported sales of $25.0 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2017, an 8.1 percent increase from the third quarter of fiscal 2016. Comparable store sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2017 were positive 7.9 percent, and comp sales for U.S. stores were positive 7.7 percent. Net earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2017 were $2.2 billion, or $1.84 per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $2.0 billion, or $1.60 per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2016. For the third quarter of fiscal 2017, diluted earnings per share increased 15.0 percent from the same period in the prior year. Click Read More below for additional information.

In its Government Reform Plan, the Administration made the case for privatizing the Postal Service, and preparing for an eventual change through recommendations coming in August from the President's Task Force on the Postal System. The business community – mailers and suppliers in the paper, printing and technology industries collectively generating $1.4 trillion in sales annually and supporting 7.5 million jobs – strongly believes privatization is not the answer for a postal system in financial distress. "Our troubled postal system can be fixed in a two-step process that does not resort to a draconian solution unproven at the gigantic scale of the U.S. Postal Service," said Art Sackler, Manager of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal System (C21), which broadly represents the industry. Those two steps would be removing $tens of billions in liabilities to prefund retiree health care imposed on the Postal Service in the short-term, and considering whether and what business model or other changes would have to be made to sustain USPS in the long-term. "The mere prospect of privatization will sow confusion, uncertainty and concern about maintaining mail and package delivery around the country, and stimulating still more volume and revenue loss when the major problem has been a drop off in mail," Sackler added. Click Read More below for additional information.