Sam’s Club cutting 2,300, many middle managers
NEW YORK (AP) – Walmart Stores Inc. is eliminating 2,300 workers at its Sam’s Club division as it reduces the ranks of middle managers in a bid to be more nimble.The layoffs, which cut 2 percent of the membership club’s employee count of about 116,000, mark the largest since 2010, when the Sam’s Club unit laid off 10,000 workers as it moved to outsource food demonstrations at its stores.
Bill Durling, a spokesman at Sam’s Club, says that a little less than half of the cuts were aimed at salaried assistant managers. It is also eliminating some hourly workers.
The cuts come as Sam’s Club strives to compete with Costco Wholesale Corp. and online players like Amazon.com’s Prime membership service.
Bristol-Myers profit dips
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. reported a 21.5 percent drop in its fourth-quarter profit despite higher drug sales, because the year-ago results had a $411 million tax benefit from writing off a failed experimental medicine.The drugmaker’s adjusted results easily beat Wall Street expectations, but that performance was overshadowed by investor concerns about the pace of a highly anticipated study in lung cancer patients.
Bristol-Myers shares fell more than 5 percent after the company declined to commit to a timeline for moving ahead with the study.
Bristol-Myers officials told analysts on a call that the company was not yet ready to move into late-stage testing of a lung cancer treatment combining two cancer medications: Yervoy and nivolumab.
The company said it would continue mid-stage testing of the combination, sparking analyst worries that unexpected issues might be holding up testing.
Both drugs work by rallying the body’s immune system to fight off cancer.
Yervoy is already approved to treat melanoma, and nivolumab is being studied to treat several other forms of cancer.
Argentina OKs U.S. dollars
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) – Argentina announced Friday it will relax restrictions on the purchase of U.S. dollars after the sharpest slide in the value of the local peso since the 2002 economic collapse.Analysts said the devaluation was forced by a steady decline in the country’s foreign exchange reserves, and it helped shake markets across the world by undermining confidence in emerging markets.
Argentines will be able to freely buy dollars for savings and travel starting Monday, reversing restrictions imposed in 2012, and the surcharge on money exchanges will drop as well.
But the brief announcement by Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich made no mention of many other restrictions imposed over the past three years, such as those that have make it hard for businesses to import supplies or repatriate profits.
Those measures were meant to stem the flood of dollars out of the country, but many economists say they undermined confidence in the peso.
Super Bowl site turf battle
ST. LOUIS (AP) – As the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks prep for their showdown in the Super Bowl, a legal fight is playing out over the turf installed last summer at the NFL title game’s venue.Missouri-based Taylor Turf Installation Inc. is suing MetLife Stadium’s operators over $292,000 the St. Louis-area company says it still is owed for installing the stadium’s playing surface.
Taylor Turf’s suit in New Jersey names New Meadowlands Stadium Co. LLC and Dalton, Ga.-based Turf Industry Inc., the company that hired Taylor for the job.
Neither party returned telephone messages that were seeking comment Friday.