K Mart Corp

K mart, which rose from its five-and-dime store beginnings 88 years ago to become the nation's second largest retailer, will part company with its variety store roots and sell the last of its Kresge and Jupiter domestic outlets. McCrory Corp. of York, Pa., tentatively agreed on Friday to acquire 76 Kresge and Jupiter stores. Analysts said the purchase would make McCrory the largest domestic operator of variety stores, surpassing F. W. Woolworth Co.

Kmart Corp. said Tuesday that it will sell 91 of its 113 Pace Membership stores to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., abandoning its money-losing discount warehouse operation and setting the stage for more intense competition between the surviving warehouse giants: Wal-Mart's Sam's Club and Price/Costco. The $300-million sales agreement gives Wal-Mart an opportunity to expand and challenge Price/Costco in markets where it has little or no presence, particularly California.

When a 9-year-old boy in Topeka, Kan., badgers his mother into buying him a GI Joe doll at K mart, toy buyers at the discount chain's headquarters in Michigan know the same day. K mart Corp., the nation's second-largest retailer, is linking its thousands of stores into a single computer information system to gain unprecedented control over its far-flung inventory.

K mart Corp. is looking for a little respect. By using celebrities to sell its goods and by expanding into a wide array of specialty stores from Waldenbooks to Builders Square do-it-yourself stores, the retailing giant is trying to move beyond its blue-light specials and blue-collar shoppers. "My goal is to make K mart the most respected dominant retailer in America," says Joseph E. Antonini, who this week assumes the chairmanship of the nation's second-largest retailer.

Bankrupt retailer Kmart Corp. won a temporary restraining order preventing Penske Auto Centers from shuttering its 563 service centers over the weekend. The two companies are to return to court today to determine whether the order will be made permanent. Penske Auto Centers, which is partly owned by Kmart, had informed the Troy, Mich.-based retailer on Friday that it would shut down all of its centers beginning Saturday. But U.S.

In the wake of protests by gun control advocates, Kmart Corp. has said that it will stop selling handgun ammunition over the next 90 days. The announcement from the discount chain with more than 2,000 stores came after recent meetings between company executives and survivors of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. However, company spokeswoman Julie Fracker said Kmart's move was not made because of pressure from gun control groups.

If Leonard Green--an avid collector of paintings--puts the finishing touches on a deal that merges his partnership's Thrifty Drug stores with the rival Payless chain, he will boost his reputation as a master of the art of acquisition. Kmart has signed a letter of intent to sell its Payless drugstore unit to Leonard Green & Partners, which could lead to a sale that would rank among the biggest deals in the four-year history of the Los Angeles-based partnership.

Nicole Williams of Westchester has long counted on her local Kmart for toys, clothes and bedding. Above everything, the 34-year-old mother always came back to the retailer's store in Inglewood because of the low-cost merchandise. Now, Williams says, she doesn't know where she'll go to shop. The Inglewood store was one of 19 in California -- and 326 across the country -- that Kmart Corp.

The nation's leading discount chains are vying to lure customers with the price of Viagra, the popular impotency pill. Kmart Corp. has taken out national newspaper ads to promote its $39.99 price for a five-tablet prescription. But industry leader Wal-Mart's unadvertised price is even lower--$38.98, the company said Thursday. Viagra has been selling at pharmacies around the country for about $10 a tablet.

Kmart Holding Corp. bought Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $12.3 billion Thursday, combining two faded retail icons whose sales have been declining for years into the nation's third-biggest retailer with $55 billion in annual sales. Shareholders signed off on the deal in separate meetings at Sears' suburban Chicago headquarters, which now becomes the base for a company that adopts the name Sears Holdings Corp. It trails only Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Home Depot Inc. among U.S. retailers.