Hoffman Estates, IL, United States (AHN) – Sears Holdings has released a list of 79 Sears and Kmart stores it will close nationwide because of the company’s poor sales over the critical holiday period.

The company did not give an estimate of job losses because it said that employment numbers varied by store.

The first list of stores to close are located in every region of the country. But Florida in the Southeast led the list with 11 stores closing followed by Midwest states Michigan and Ohio with six each.

Alabama, California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Virginia are losing three stores each, while Georgia, Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington and Wisconsin will lose two each, and Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina will each lose one store. In North Carolina, four stores will close.

Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) is one of the nation’s largest retailers. The company did not announce the closing dates for the stores.

Chief Executive Officer Lou D’Ambrosio announced the store closings and outlined other actions in a statement.

“Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model. These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail – at the store, online and in the home,” D’Ambrosio said.

He said the company would also reduce its peak inventory and fixed costs as well as focus on improving profit margins.

Same-store sales were down by 5.2 percent in the eight weeks leading to Christmas Day compared to a year earlier.

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Sony on Monday revised its consolidated results forecast for the fiscal year ended March 31. The good news is that Sony expects sales, operating revenue, and operating income to be in line with its February forecast despite the impact of the earthquake in Japan. The bad news is that Sony will bleed $3.2 billion of operating profit and miss its annual earnings forecast in the wake of the earthquake.

“The earnings drop preannouncement seems oversized and really highlights the exposure that cloud services have to hacker proclivities,” said Al Hilwa, a program manager at IDC. “We have seen that viruses in the past have seriously impacted licensed software, but the impact on revenues is typically long-term and much less acute compared to these network outages.”

Supply-Chain Interruptions

Sony also expects to take a hit on incremental expenses related to the earthquake, including restoration costs for sites damaged by the disaster. Sony figures it will spend 11 billion yen, or $134 million, to fix buildings, machinery and equipment as well as inventories. However, insurance should cover most of those costs.

“Our supply chain was significantly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. In addition to direct damages, component-procurement conditions and power outages are also affecting our operation,” said Masaru Kato, executive vice president and CFO of Sony.

“We have spent the time until last week investigating the conditions of recovery from this damage and reviewing our business plan whilst taking our new forecast into account, which has resulted in today’s announcement. It has taken some time to reevaluate our business plan to include the impact of the earthquake, and this is one…

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New York, NY, United States (AHN Entertainment) – The French box office hit Romantics Anonymous will be released in the U.S. after a well-received international premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Fesitval.

Romantics Anonymous, directed by Jean-Pierre Améris and co-written by Améris and Philippe Blasband, is the story of two shy, yet talented chocolate-makers (played by Angélique Delange and Jean-René Van Den Hugde) whose social inhibitions prevent them from sharing their creations.

When the pair start working together, they must overcome their shyness in order to save the business and their relationship.

Romantics Anonymous has already earned $9 million in France and was referred to as “one of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival word-of-mouth sensations” by IFC.com.

“At Tribeca Film Festival the audience welcomed Romantics Anonymous with such warmth, when we debated after the screenings people were so connected to the humor and emotion of the film, that I am particularly happy to know the film will be distributed in the United States and this conversation with American audiences will carry on,” said Jean-Pierre Améris.

“Romantics Anonymous is universal in its appeal and its treatment of love and romance. We look forward to bringing it to a wider audience in the U.S.,” said Tribeca Enterprises Chief Creative Officer, Geoffrey Gilmore.

The deal between Tribeca Film and StudioCanal was completed at the current Cannes Film Festival and gives Tribeca Films all U.S. rights to Romantics Anonymous.

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The U.S. government spends about $425 billion each year on goods and services. Within that sum, nearly a quarter of that budget is set aside exclusively to contract small businesses. Still, breaking into the world of government contracting can be a challenging and confusing experience for a small business owner. It often takes a bit of strategy-and grit-to make Uncle Sam one of your clients. One such story is Craig Technologies, a engineering and technical services company based in Melbourne, Florida, which contracts with the Army, Navy, NASA, and the Air Force. Carol Craig, the comapany’s founder, started the business out of her home as a part-time contractor. A decade later, it is a $20 million firm with about 250 employees. Scaling a business depended on government contracts is no simple task, especially when global firms (think Accenture or Boeing) have long-standing, secure relationships with their government clients. Inc.com’s Eric Markowitz spoke with Craig about her military career, maxing out eight credit cards to start her business, and scoring her first government contract. What’s your background? Did you always know you wanted to work with the government? I have an ADD background. (Laughs) I’ve done things in IT and engineering but after school I joined the Navy, where I designed cockpit systems for the Department of Defense. I was doing a lot of work with pilots and aviators so I figured, if they could do it, I could do it. I got accepted to be a flight officer on P-3 Orions and went ahead and did that for a couple of years. I let the Navy do surgery on my knee and they ended up screwing it up so I got out as a service-disabled veteran. You’re certified as a woman-and-veteran owned business. Does this give you a leg up on your competitors? The federal government says that 23 percent of all government dollars must be set aside of small businesses, and a part of that goes to minority-owned businesses (including women-owned, veteran & service-disabled veteran owned, Native American-owned, Alaskan-owned, and Native Hawaiian-owned corporations). There’s still competition in there-it’s not as easy as it sounds, but it definitely gives you an advantage over the large government contractors who have been in there for years. It gives you a chance to compete against them. What was the process of getting certified like? What I didn’t realize was how long it would take. From 2002 to 2005 I focused on the civilian side, just trying to get everything in place for the government side. There were definitely some sleepless nights. There were lines of credits that turned into working capital loans. I think I had eight credit cards, all maxed out. That kind of stuff. When did it turn around? In 2005, I finally got my first government contract. For me, a job with six people was significant. Today we have over 250 people. I’ve tried to be really controlled with my company’s expansion because when companies expand too quickly, they don’t have the right infrastructure in place. I’m definitely a planner; I’m always thinking ahead. What are some of the challenges of being a government contractor? Government contracting can become very frustrating because you can just become a number. A lot of contractors with call them “butts in chairs” (but I won’t allow our employees to refer to people like that). It’s also common to get short-term projects, like six months or so. I stay away from those-we’re looking for contracts that span five to 10 years. What advice would you give to a business that’s just starting out? Well, I actually took losses in the beginning. Overall, government contracting in the service industry is not very lucrative. You’re lucky if you can get four to five percent bottom-line profit at the end of the day. You have to be creative if you’re going to get anything higher than that. A lot of that is just because the government really looks at your costs and expenditures and considers a lot of it unallowable. That all comes out of profit. One thing I did initially was that I came in with lower prices and accepted jobs at a loss, so for a couple of years I had some pretty significant losses. But, like I said, it was a long-term strategy, and I knew that it was important to learn the field, get past performance reviews, and as the company grew, I knew I would see the profits improve. What about branching out to new services? Is that a good way to expand in contracting? Definitely. I used diversification to my advantage. I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing, but because I was comfortable with technology, I felt as a small business, I could have contracts all over different agencies. That meant I could have people all over the United States, and a core capability that was diverse. It wasn’t a shotgun effect-I wasn’t going to be mowing lawns or doing anything too high end, but there’s a whole big world in between, and diversification was a good thing, not a negative. Is there a good size for a company to be to be able to contract? My goal is a little less than 500 people, because you’re still considered a small business under certain qualifications. Also, 500 is a manageable number for me personally. I don’t have the experience to be a CEO of a big company just yet. But expanding from a staff of one to 250 employees requires some serious business skills, right? I don’t have a business degree, and that might help. (Laughs). I guess I just don’t know what I don’t know.

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The Lending Club is an online financial community that brings together borrowers and lenders. Their mission is to create al alternative to banks that offers borrowers a great rate introducing borrowers to lenders via the internet.

Peer-to-peer lending is not new, but the Lending club is one of the main innovators in this area. Borrowers hurt by the credit squeeze can turn to peer lending to find financing from investors looking to lend.

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You can borrow up to $35,000 at a lower rate than the bank typically offers.

Start today for a Personal Loan or a Low Interest Loan

*information based on Lending Club website on 4/13/2010

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – While Canadian businesses laud a campaign promise from the Liberal Party to grant firms a tax break for hiring young workers, they oppose a planned corporate tax increase to 18 percent from 16.5 percent.

The Liberals have been pushing for a corporate tax hike, while the Tories insist on a corporate tax reduction in the last Parliament.

Catherine Swift, president of the Canadian Federation Independent Business, pointed out that the current standard that classifies business income of over $500,000 places companies with few employees on the same footing as those with many workers.

Swift also warned of the negative impact of hiking Canada Pension Plan benefits because payroll taxes are one of the largest issues for independent Canadian businesses. However, she lauded the campaign offer by the Liberal Party of a 100 percent break on Employment Insurance premiums if small- and medium-sized firms would hire people between 18 to 25 years old.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Sunday that the party decided to offer the Youth Hiring Incentive program because it is small- and medium-sized firms that create most of the jobs.

The Liberals also vowed to reduce spending, hike taxes on the rich, push homeowners to pursue green renovations and offer online voting for Canadians.

Ignatieff estimated their campaign platform would cost $8.23 billion. However, the Tories disputed the Liberals’ figure and reckoned it would cost at least $10 billion.

Ignatieff said that despite these programs, by hiking the corporate tax rate by 1.5 percent, a Liberal-led federal government would be able to save $3 billion in the first year of office. He added the savings would grow to $5 billion in the second year.

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