PLANYC 2030

In the weeks since the Jan. 12 earthquake that leveled Port-au-Prince, cruise ships full of mostly American tourists have continued to dock in Labadee, a private resort 60 miles north of Haiti’s devastated capital city. “It was a bit surreal knowing that the center of the world’s focus was only 100 miles away,” says passenger Becky O’Connor, who visited the island on a recent cruise. On the television in her stateroom, Fox News broadcast the first airdrops over Port-au-Prince amid a background of apocalypse. Off the side of her balcony, she could see aid supplies—water, powdered milk, dried beans—being unloaded onto the pier and piled into trucks. But surrounding her and the other 3,000 or so passengers who had booked mid-January cruises on Royal Caribbean International (the only cruise line with a port in Haiti) were all the amenities one would expect of a luxury vacation. On board: 17 decks’ worth of buffets, swimming pools, casinos, miniature golf, and a 1,200-seat theater. Ashore: a Dis-neyesque pseudotown with pristine beaches, lovely cabanas, and quaint cafés and shops.

At first, passengers were uneasy about the visit—mulling over safety concerns and discussing among themselves the ethical quandary of so much wealth and luxury amid such devastation. But by midday, most had overcome their reservations and were venturing ashore. “The idea to relax so close to the death and destruction was definitely awkward,” says Daniel Melleby, another passenger. “But it became clear pretty quickly that the people there were very happy and relieved to see us.”

While many have criticized the cruise line’s decision to proceed with planned trips to the Haiti port just days after the quake, many more have argued that canceling scheduled stops would only hurt the already struggling Haitian economy. The passengers themselves have held both views. Some note surges of pride as they watched pallets of supplies being unloaded from the cruise ship, others say they spent more on local wares than they normally would have, and most describe the stop as more somber than others along the same route. “I believe it was the right decision to support Haiti financially,” says one passenger, who gave her name only as Linda. “But I could not bring myself  to enjoy anything on Labadee.” The ambivalence underscores what some say is a persistent, if not always obvious, uneasiness between wealthy vacationers and the struggling countries they like to frequent.

Labadee—a former slave plantation on the northern coast of Haiti, named for the Frenchman who settled it in 1600—is the only Haitian port open to cruise ships. In 1986 Royal Caribbean International leased the spot from the Haitian government and transformed it into a pri-vate resort, one of several stops along its Caribbean route. Last year, at the urging of President Bill Clinton, who traveled to Labadee to promote tourism in the region, the company spent $55 million upgrading the port to accommodate its newest fleet member, Oasis of the Seas, the world’s largest passenger ship. The company made Labadee the ship’s maiden destination.

After the earthquake, the Haitian government urged Royal Caribbean to proceed with its scheduled stops on the island. The company complied, and on Jan. 15 delivered nearly 40 pallets of food and water, along with roughly 3,000 tourists, who spent at least some of their money stimulating the local economy. More ships followed on the 18, 19, and 22; so far, the cruise line has brought nearly 400 pallets of ur-gently needed goods ashore. In addition, the company promised to donate all money made at the Labadee resort to the relief effort, at least until Feb. 1. Combined with passenger donations, they expect to reach $2 million in contributions. Royal Caribbean has also augmented an existing crew-welfare fund to provide up to $2,500 in grant money to any Haitian employee seeking to rebuild homes or find loved ones. Compassion leave has been extended from two weeks to indefinitely. But while no one disputes the value of sending food, water, and cash donations in the wake of a disaster, larger questions—about whether the company and its policies are the best option for Haiti—persist.

To be sure, Royal Caribbean is among Haiti’s largest foreign investors. According to the company, it employs 200 locals at Labadee and allows another 300 to sell their wares on the premises. They also pay the Haitian government a “head tax” of $6 per tourist. With roughly 365,000 tourists visiting the site each year, that adds up to slightly more than $2 million in revenue for the beleaguered country, whose 2008 GDP was estimated at $6.9 billion. But critics say that a nonprivatized port could yield far more in publicity and profits for the local community. The tiny peninsula is currently sequestered from the surrounding area by a 10-foot-high fence and a private armed security force; passengers are not allowed to leave the property. And because the company owns all the restaurants and concession stations, most payments for food and beverages are made not in cash, but via room keys or cruise cards, which means no tips for employees.

Royal Caribbean is not the only company to turn a chunk of foreign land into a private tourist spot. Disney, Princess, and Norwegian Cruise Lines have each claimed various segments of beach in the Bahamas. Once bought or leased, experts say these tracts of land are typically recast as private beaches and staffed by private work-forces. “Unlike other port calls, on a private island [or in a private port like Labadee] the revenues and profits remain largely with the cruise line,” says Ross Klein, a sociologist who has written three books about the cruise industry. “While it’s quite profitable to the cruise line, the benefit to the local economy is relatively small and very limited.”

The cruise industry in general has been subject to a rash of criticism over the years, for unfair labor practices, dismal environmental records, and shoddy safety practices. But Royal Caribbean Cruises has come under special criticism for its policies in Haiti. Labadee, with its high fences and armed guards, is far more closed off to the surrounding community than other resorts like it. And, as The Christian Science Monitor reported, advertisements for the port tend to avoid any mention of Haiti, describing it as a private island rather than as a peninsula contiguous with the rest of the country.

Given the scale of the current disaster, some passengers feel the company’s contributions to the relief effort did not go far enough: “These ships hold thousands of customers and crew. They often have five different buffets at a time and huge amounts of food are wasted,” writes one woman—who visited the port with her family last year—on an Internet listserv. “If Royal shut down just one eating option per boat and donated all the food, they could feed hundreds.”

Still, most passengers and cruise enthusiasts seem to support Royal Caribbean’s decisions: a company representative said that 85 percent of guests who docked at Labadee ultimately went ashore. And in a survey of some 4,700 people done by the Web site Cruise Critic, two thirds of respondents agreed with the company’s decision to proceed with scheduled cruises. After all, as many have pointed out, Haiti was no oasis before the earthquake hit.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Davos can be a catalyst for great ideas, and one example is the GreenXchange conceived by Nike. This morning Nike formally launched the Xchange at a CEO breakfast in Davos.

The venue was a conscripted hairdressing salon that was pressed into service by the Forum as a meeting space. We were like sardines. But the energy in the tiny room was high.

To recap: The Xchange is a Web-based marketplace where companies can collaborate and share intellectual property which can lead to new sustainability business models and innovation. Ten organizations have already signed on. The Xchange is the first step in a journey towards more sustainable innovation, and the more companies that get on board, the faster we’ll all make progress. More info can be found here.

In Wikinomics co-author Anthony Williams and I argued that we’re living in a world where new approaches to collaboration enable new business models that empower companies to create better value for consumers. We said companies need a portfolio of intellectual property – some that they own and protect, some that they license and some that they share. The Green Xchange is all about achieving that.

Nike began this morning’s announcement with a cool video that made it clear that sustainability is not an obligation, it’s an opportunity. Companies can choose to be ahead of the curve or behind the times. The goal is to create an innovation community. No one is “giving away” their intellectual property; the exchange includes a licensing protocol.

“Nike is today committing to placing more than 400 of our patents on GX for research, demonstrating our belief that the best way to stimulate sustainable innovation is through open innovation,” said Mark Parker, Nike president and CEO. “Our hope is this will unleash new innovation to help solve current obstacles to sustainability issues.”

Example: Possible cross-industry benefits of making available Nike’s Environmentally Preferred Rubber. Used in Nike footwear the rubber contains 96 percent fewer toxins than the original formulation. By licensing the technology on GX it could be used in other company’s footwear, or it could hypothetically be used by Mountain Equipment Co-op for bicycle inner tubes. In this way Mountain Equipment Co-op could bring a greener product to market more quickly and cheaply than it could on its own.

Parker explained that initially the company’s lawyers opposed the Xchange. They felt intellectual property was always meant to be kept under wraps and guarded. But they’ve all come around to see the value of the Xchange, not only to the environment, but also bring competitive advantage to the company. When Nike’s patents are put into the commons, any improvements made to the patents will be available to Nike.

Parker said universities are a great source of intellectual property. What is needed – and what the Xchange provides – is a standard protocol whereby IP can bust out from the university and be helpful more broadly to business and society.

John Wilbanks, VP for Science at Creative Commons, said “There is so much duplication of effort and wasted resources when it comes to sustainability. We need to make it easier for individuals, companies, academia, and researchers to collaborate and share best practices.”

This idea of a patent commons came up at another session. Currently the planet has many commons like the ocean, air and space. Much of the Web is in the commons. It’s time we added a new area: know-how related to sustainability.

A fresh face for Novartis could be just what the doctor ordered. Investors took the Swiss drugs group’s surprise decision Tuesday to replace incumbent Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella with pharmaceuticals head Joe Jimenez in their stride, as stronger than expected 2009 earnings helped push the share price 1.5% higher. Mr. Vasella will stay on as chairman in the new structure.

Mr. Jimenez inherits a solid set of full-year results, including a 54% rise in fourth quarter net profits, boosted by sales of swine flu vaccines that beat analyst forecasts by 20%. But concerns over future growth remain: the company faces imminent price cuts in U.S., Japanese and Turkish markets, as well as generic competition on key drug Diovan this year. There are also question marks over its pipeline, including worries over U.S. approval of the much-hyped multiple sclerosis treatment, and the huge cash drain of some 40 drugs in phase-III clinical trials.

There’s also uncertainty over the ultimate cost of the $50 billion acquisition of U.S. eyecare group Alcon. Court action by minority shareholders could force Novartis to raise the almost $11 billion it offered in stock for their stake earlier this month. Given the minorities include many employees, a protracted dispute could undermine efforts to integrate the business. Novartis investors used to 13 consecutive dividend increases could balk if dividend growth is sacrificed to divert cash elsewhere.

Given these concerns, Mr. Jimenez’s priority should be to cut costs. Inefficiencies in areas such as IT

remain, offering scope for savings across the board. Tuesday’s management changes, which include the elimination of three executive positions, offer some encouragement on this score. Mr. Jimenez has already

helped deliver a three-year cost overhaul ahead of schedule while still achieving significantly higher operating margins in pharmaceuticals. New chief financial officer Jon Symonds, who joins from Goldman Sachs in February, also has a reputation as a cost-cutter.

Even so, Novartis shares now trade at 11.6 times this year’s earnings—an 8% premium to the average of major European pharmaceutical groups, according to Credit Suisse. Plus the market is already pricing in further cost-cutting. In addition to a swift resolution to the Alcon deal, Jimenez will need to show he is a skilful corporate surgeon to justify any further re-rating.

Countries have emerged faster than expected from the global recession, but the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that managing post-crisis growth is becoming complicated by the divergence in advanced and developing economies.

The IMF presented a much brighter outlook for this year, with the world economy forecast to expand at a 3.9% pace instead of the 3.1% estimate given in October. Global growth is expected to continue to pick up in 2011, with the forecast edging up to 4.3% from 4.2%.

But the rebound will increasingly be driven by developing countries as public stimulus recedes, with the IMF trimming some advanced economy forecasts for next year given continued weak private demand and credit constraints.

“The global recovery is off to a stronger start than anticipated earlier but is proceeding at different speeds in the various regions,” the IMF said in its update to the World Economic Outlook.

“Policies need to foster a rebalancing of global demand, remaining supportive where recoveries are not yet well sustained,” it said.

Most advanced economies will remain “sluggish,” the fund said, with the group expected to expand 2.1% this year and 2.4% in 2011. Meanwhile, internal demand in many emerging and developing markets will provide “relatively vigorous” growth, the IMF said, forecasting 6% growth in 2010 and 6.3% in 2011 for that group.

The divergence in growth paths raises significant policy challenges, as some developing countries are facing the risk that surging inflows will cause new asset bubbles at a time when many advanced economies continue to rely on extraordinary monetary, fiscal and financial support measures.

That unprecedented policy support has raised concerns about sovereign debt risk, the fund said, but it continued to warn that “a premature and incoherent exit from supportive policies may undermine global growth and its rebalancing.”

The IMF acknowledges the difficult task of timing exit strategies. Once private demand becomes sustainable, countries should take into consideration concerns about debt levels, as well as asset price bubbles and currency appreciation, it said.

Emerging economies dealing with surging inflows face a complex task and the policy response should depend on circumstances, such as tightening fiscal policy or allowing currency appreciation, the fund said. But it also reiterated that some buildup of reserves or capital controls may be appropriate to address large and transitory movements.

Given growing concerns about public debt levels, the fund recommends that countries fully implement fiscal stimulus for this year, while devising credible fiscal sustainability plans. Medium-term fiscal consolidation should protect spending on the poor and forming aid while overhauling entitlement spending, it said.

Regarding monetary policy, the fund said many central banks can afford to keep rates low this year given expectations of low inflation. Countries recovering faster will have to tighten sooner, it added.

On the financial front, advanced countries and the hardest-hit emerging economies still have to deal with bank restructuring and removing toxic assets. Policy makers should remove financial support gradually, while moving ahead with reforms that will both reduce financial risk and make the banking sector more effective and resilient, it said.

Among advanced economy forecasts, growth in the U.S. is expected to reach 2.7% in 2010 and 2.4% next year. The fund said new U.S. policies to create jobs could boost growth there and globally.

The euro area is forecast to grow 1% this year and 1.6% in 2011, while the U.K. is seen expanding 1.3% this year and 2.7% next. Japan is projected to grow 1.7% and 2.2%, and Canada’s economy is seen rising 2.6% and 3.6%.

Regionally, developing Asia is forecast to grow 8.4% in 2010 and 2011, with China expanding at a 10% clip this year and 9.7% next. Central and eastern Europe economies are expected to rise 2% in 2010 and 3.7% next year, while emerging economies in the Western Hemisphere are forecast to grow 3.7% and 3.8%. Africa is expected to grow 4.3% and 5.3% over the next two years.

NBC’s handling of the Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien succession provides lessons in what not to do, management watchers say.

NBC made two critical missteps six years ago when the network signed Mr. O’Brien to replace Mr. Leno in 2009, say management consultants. It’s a bad idea to promise someone a promotion in order to retain him, they say, and so is naming a successor too far in advance.

The moves came back to bite NBC this month, and offer a cautionary tale for managers in other industries.

Lesson No. 1: “Never try to staff an organization just to block the career options that follow from a talent surplus,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale’s School of Management, via email.

In 2004, NBC announced Mr. O’Brien would succeed Mr. Leno atop “The Tonight Show” in 2009. Mr. O’Brien’s contract was set to expire, and NBC risked losing him to CBS or ABC. The deal meant that Mr. Leno’s tenure would last 17 years, much shorter than predecessor Johnny Carson’s 30-year run. By 2009, “Leno was not ready to go and his audience was not ready to let him go,” Mr. Sonnenfeld says.

He argues that well-run companies can benefit when stars leave to fulfill ambitions elsewhere: The firm gains a reputation as a hotbed for talent. Ironically, GE, in its corporate ranks, is often cited as an example of this phenomenon. After Jeff Immelt won the horse race to succeed Jack Welch in 2000, runners-up James McNerney and Robert Nardelli left to land CEO jobs at other companies. 3M Co. wooed Mr. McNerney; Home Depot Inc. hired Mr. Nardelli. GE has long enjoyed a reputation as a sought-after place to develop a career.

Such companies “are a breeding ground for stars which is a magnet to attract … ambitious new talent,” Mr. Sonnenfeld says.

Lesson No. 2: Don’t wait five years between the engagement and the marriage. “There’s a Goldilocks time frame for a succession: If it’s too short, people don’t have enough time to get acclimated,” says Ben Dattner, an organizational psychologist. “If it’s too long, the world can change.”

Most well-regarded CEO handoffs are shorter – especially once the successor has been formally announced. Xerox Corp.’s transition to Ursula Burns from Anne Mulcahy is generally viewed as a model of good succession planning. Ms. Mulcahy signaled Xerox’s plan in 2007 by naming Ms. Burns, a Xerox veteran, president. In May 2009, Xerox named Ms. Burns CEO, effective July 1.

An NBC spokeswoman said via email the Conan-Leno situation isn’t analogous to other corporate successions, saying it’s “a unique decision any company in the talent business faces.” NBC named a successor far in advance because it has “a responsibility to protect our franchises.” She added: “If you sign a sought after quarterback out of college with the promise he will start in a couple of years for the veteran, but when he does can’t win a game, you have to decide if that decision you made then worked … Studios sign deals for film and TV projects, often well into the future, all the time. Sometimes they don’t work out because things change.”

Management watchers see one bright spot for Mr. Leno: Some corporate stars have returned to employers to complete successful second acts.

Steve Jobs is the most famous example. Apple’s co-founder left in the 1980s but returned as an adviser in 1996 after Apple agreed to buy NeXT Software Inc., also founded by Mr. Jobs. A board member convinced Mr. Jobs to retake the helm in 1997, as the company struggled; Mr. Jobs was “interim” CEO until January 2000. He returned the company to profitability, launched Apple-branded retail stores and guided the development of the iPod, which transformed the music industry and Apple.

For Mr. Leno, it’s key that he address the controversy, says Matthew Paese, vice president, executive succession management, at Development Dimensions International, a consulting firm. It “would be a mistake for Leno to come back and to not acknowledge that there’s been a real hitch in his career,” he says.

A top House Democrat on Friday said his committee was preparing to recommend “abolishing” mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and rebuilding the U.S. housing-finance system from scratch.

“The remedy here is…as I believe this committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

His comments initially rippled through bond markets on concerns that the government might pull away from the mortgage market. Many believe that’s unlikely and that any revamp would include continued government involvement. The government took over the companies in September 2008 as loan losses mounted.

Some Republicans have argued that the companies should ultimately be reduced in size and privatized, while at other end of the spectrum, some analysts have recommended turning the companies into government agencies. But several industry groups and academics have suggested that the government is likely to continue playing at least some role in the future of the companies.

One such report came from analysts at Standard & Poor’s this past week. “It’s hard for us to imagine” how enough capital could be attracted to replace Fannie and Freddie with stand-alone private companies that would be able to offer low-cost funding for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, the analysts wrote.

Some analysts have argued that starting from scratch could create more problems than they would solve, in part because Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee around half of the nation’s $11 trillion in home mortgages. “Blue sky ideas are great, but they take a long time to happen,” said Mahesh Swaminathan, senior mortgage strategist at Credit Suisse, at a conference last month. “When you have $5 trillion of agency mortgages, you can’t really orphan them.”

Mr. Frank, who didn’t elaborate on forthcoming recommendations, said last month that one possible revamp could merge some functions of Fannie and Freddie that overlap with the Federal Housing Administration into the government mortgage-insurance agency.

The Obama administration said it will weigh in on how to revamp the companies—and the entire housing-finance system—when it releases its budget next month. Republicans have increasingly criticized the administration for moving to overhaul the financial sector without spelling out plans for Fannie and Freddie.

In a PBS interview on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the legislative process to overhaul Fannie, Freddie and the housing-finance system was unlikely to begin this year. “It’s just a complicated thing to get right,” he said. “But we are completely supportive and agree completely with the need to make sure that we take a cold, hard look at what the future of those institutions should be in our country.”

DAVOS, Switzerland — France wants to use its presidency of the Group of 20 next year to create a new international monetary system, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday, adding that he believed the U.S. dollar should no longer be the primary reserve currency in the global economy.

In an expansive and lofty speech to the business and political leaders gathered here at the annual World Economic Forum, Mr. Sarkozy also called for a “revolution” in international regulation that would make labor, health and environmental standards as enforceable as trade rules.

Like Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, he backed a tax on financial market transactions. But Mr. Sarkozy, pursuing his call for a more moral form of financial capitalism, suggested the proceeds be used to combat climate change and create a World Environment Organization as powerful as the World Trade Organization.

Mr. Sarkozy also took a hard line on bankers’ bonuses, insisting that lavish rewards should be denied to those destroying wealth and jobs.

But before an audience that contained many Americans and many Chinese, his comments on currencies arguably had the greatest resonance.

“We need a new Bretton Woods,” Mr. Sarkozy told a packed auditorium. “We can’t have on the one hand a multi-polar world and on the other a single reserve currency on a global level.”

In a thinly veiled reference to China keeping its currency at an undervalued level, he added: “We cannot on the one hand laud free markets and on the other tolerate monetary dumping.”

During its 2011 presidency of the Group of Eight — the leading Western industrial powers plus Russia — and the wider G-20, which also includes several important developing nations, France “will put the reform of the international monetary system on the agenda,” Mr. Sarkozy said.

Mr. Sarkozy also warned that the economic recovery currently underway remains vulnerable, urging central banks against withdrawing monetary stimulus measures too abruptly, saying it could prompt a collapse of the world economy.

“We must take care to prevent too abrupt a tightening,” he said.

The powerbrokers at Davos were not Mr. Sarkozy’s only audience. Six weeks ahead of regional elections in France, which are widely seen as at least a partial judgment on his presidency, the president has tried to reverse a decline in his approval rating, currently at a record low.

“It was an effective, quite populist speech,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor at Oxford University and political commentator who was in the audience. “As always at Davos, national leaders are at least half talking to their own audience.”

In 2008, when France held the presidency of the European Union for six months, Mr. Sarkozy proved a dynamic — if controversial — leader, first negotiating a ceasefire that halted the war in Georgia with Russia, and then bringing together European leaders to coordinate their response to the financial crisis.

As president of the G-20, he could repeat that performance, and even observers who find his style at times overbearing applaud his tenacity and energy.

“The dynamism of the chair,” Mr. Garton Ash said, “may bring some more substance to the G-20.”

Mr. Sarkozy was the first French president to give the keynote address at the Davos forum, and it afforded him the chance to pit well-paid bankers against ordinary citizens.

He reiterated themes that have resounded in recent days, starting with President Barack Obama, who proposed a tax on banks’ liabilities, and then went further, suggesting that their size should be limited.

The French president said he agreed with Mr. Obama, but stressed that all regulation concerning banks should be dealt with at an international level, coordinated by the G-20.

Calling the current crisis a “crisis of globalization itself,” he urged broad coordination of regulation and accounting rules.

“If competition is distorted by accounting rules that remain very different from one country to another, and one continent to another, market actors will find it normal to return to pre-crisis habits,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “How, in a competitive world, can we demand of European banks three times more capital to cover their risks in their activities and not ask the same of American and Asian banks?”

His aim was not, he stressed, to do away with capitalism itself but to tame financial markets. To this aim, a tax, he said, was now unavoidable.

“We can’t escape the debate about taxing speculation,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “Whether you want to rein in frenetic financial markets, finance development aid or associate poor countries to the fight against climate change, everything brings us back to the taxation of financial transactions.”

BRILLION, Wis. – Ariens Company has acquired the intellectual assets of the Kee Mower brand of products. The high-wheel walk-behind mowers are used by rural property owners, landscape contractors and municipalities to cut underbrush, remove heavy overgrowth of tall grasses or weeds, and conduct tight trimming around and under structures such as fences.

The company plans to sell Kee Mowers under the Gravely brand of products available through independent power equipment dealers.

“We plan to rationalize the product line-up with input from our dealers to ensure we have the right specifications for the market,” says Dan Ariens, president. “Because production of these products stopped nearly eight months ago, we also will have to take some time to re-establish the supply chain.”

Ariens will produce the Kee products at its manufacturing facility in Opp, Ala. The company expects to have the program complete in 60 days and start production within the next 90 days, according to Ariens. The company did not acquire any product inventory as part of the sale and, therefore, will not be able to fill any outstanding orders that may exist.

Kee Mowers have a 50-year history in the outdoor power equipment segment. The products were most recently manufactured by Hoffco Power Equipment.

Ariens’ commercial brands also include Gravely, EverRide and Great Dane commercial lawn equipment for professional landscape contractors, as well as Gravely Turf products, Parker debris handling equipment and Locke reel mowers for the sports field sector. Ariens’ affiliates, Stens Corporation and its Australian counterpart, Bynorm Group, supply replacement parts to the outdoor power equipment industry.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is cutting 10,000 jobs at its Sam’s Club warehouses nationwide, mostly part-time employees assigned to demonstrate products and hand out samples to shoppers.

The move comes as Wal-Mart outsources its product-demonstration teams to an independent marketing company, Shopper Events.

In a memo to employees, Brian Cornell, president and chief executive of Sam’s Club, said Shopper Events would develop a new demonstration program, “Tastes and Tips,” covering not only food and beverages but also electronics and other products.

Sam’s Club employees laid off because of the shift can apply for jobs at Shopper Events.

The move comes shortly after Wal-Mart said it would close 10 underperforming Sam’s Club stores, eliminating 1,500 jobs.

McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) fourth-quarter earnings rose 23% as the restaurant giant increased same-store sales across all regions despite a global downturn, offering hope for the struggling fast-food industry.

McDonald’s also reported stronger results in December, with same-store sales rising 1% in the U.S. after two months of decline, and said trends continued to improve in January, with customers responding favorably to the chain’s mix of value and premium items.

Shares of the world’s largest restaurant chain rose 1.5% in recent trading to $64.16, and helped lift other fast-food players like Burger King Holdings Inc. ( BKC), up 2.5% to $18.20, and Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc. (WEN), up 3% to $4.78.

McDonald’s executives tempered budding signs of improvement with gloomy environment for jobs. Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Skinner said on a call with analysts that until job creation materializes, “we’re not going to see enormous pickups or a big change relative to trends in consumer spending.”

Still, the chain is taking the downturn as an opportunity to widen its lead in the fast-food market, which it sees as shrinking. It’s attracting customers with value, including a new Dollar Menu at breakfast that it is making permanent, and also new snack items, like Mac Snack Wrap – a version of a Big Mac in a tortilla – priced around $1.49.

Unlike some other chains who have slashed prices on existing items, McDonald’s hasn’t let its low-priced food eat into margins as much as other fast-food chains. Goldman Sachs restaurant analyst Steven Kron noted that McDonald’s was able to increase U.S. same-store sales and improve its margins, a feat that’s “a pretty rare occurrence these days in” the fast-food industry.

“There’s very little not to like here,” Kron said. “Traffic-driving initiatives aren’t coming at the expense of margins.”

McDonald’s is complementing the value-items with premium products, like espresso-based coffee and Angus burgers, which are helping avoid having its average check decline. Such a strategy has grown in importance as McDonald’s says is losing the ability to raise prices annually, as restaurant chains have typically done to keep pace with inflation. McDonald’s says that avoiding price increases helped it add customer traffic in 2009.

“Our consumers today around the world deserve a break,” Skinner said.

For the quarter, McDonald’s profit rose to $1.22 billion, or $1.11 a share, from $985.3 million, or 87 cents, a year earlier. The latest period included an 8-cent benefit related to the resolution of a 2007 license transaction while currency changes added 7 cents to the bottom line.

Revenue increased 7% to $5.97 billion. Same-store sales, or sales at restaurants open at least 13 months, rose 2.3% globally. The company hasn’t posted a quarter of global same-store sales declines since early 2003.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently forecast earnings of $1.02 on revenue of $5.94 billion.