Word: merchants
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Almost Shakespearean, no? True, the Bard didn't offer much in the way of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) or special-interest vehicles--two key sources of Citi's pain. He did, however, understand diversification. "My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, nor to one place," said Antonio, the Merchant of Venice. "Therefore, my merchandise makes...
...know what? So has Wal-Mart. Under Castro-Wright's prodding, Wal-Mart is trying to become a local merchant again. It is moving managers away from the all-powerful Bentonville, Ark., headquarters and closer to the customers. It is developing snazzier and highly efficient store designs to entice existing customers to shop more broadly across the store rather than just for groceries and health- and beauty-care products. "We have enough customers," insists Scott, 57, who can boast that nearly 20 million Americans shop at a Wal-Mart every day. But while they're happily buying toys, toothpaste...
...faintly resembles another company that once ruled retailing from a central HQ. Sears, Roebuck grew fat supplying rural and small-town America, but ultimately its culture couldn't adjust to shopping-mall America or to discounters. Shoppers today have little idea how awesome was the power of the Chicago merchant. And before Sears there was the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the A&P, an urban power that once ran nearly 16,000 U.S. stores. Competitors quaked before it. This is the history of retailing. It says that every company that has reached No. 1, from Woolworth's to Kmart...
...support. Local officials had tried to cover up the missing tigers, and detectives were hired to out the poachers. But there was also good news: 14 cubs had been born. The children were riveted. In 10 days traveling in India they had ridden an elephant and met a gemstone merchant, and now they knew two tiger specialists. And the next afternoon when they observed a female tiger watering at a stream on a safari ride, they savored their good luck...
...Chan has never shied from a challenge. Born in Shanghai, she was one of eight children. "I'm used to having crowds around me with everyone shouting at the top of their voices," she says. Her father, a textile merchant, died when she was a child; her widowed mother took over the family business before embarking on a successful career as an artist. (Chan's apartment is decorated with her mother's ink-brush paintings, and some of her mother's steely resolve seems to have rubbed off too.) Although she trained to become a social worker, Chan joined...