rts. Key to the recovery is mainly the hypermarkets. At June 2017, Carrefour had 1507 hypermarkets out of its more than 12,000 stores, with 243 in France, 458 in the rest of Europe, 338 in Latin America, 370 in Asia, and 94 in other countries. In the third quarter, their sales performance flagged, showing a 3.6 per cent like-for-like decline. In Brazil, the group’s second-largest market after France, sales growth also slowed amid decelerating food inflation. In Europe, Spain returned to growth in the quarter. The retailer’s regeneration plan, Carrefour 2022, aims to lift sales, cut costs and boost e-commerce. It is focused on beating the competition from the likes of domestic rival Leclerc and online giant Amazon, so it is offering more organic products and own-brand labels in a bid to distinguish itself. Booming UPS loses key executive United Parcel Service has announced that COO Jim Barber, widely viewed as the company’s next leader, would retire at year-end. The news immediately sent shares in the world’s largest package-delivery group down 3 per cent. Barber, who oversees the company’s global small package, freight, supply chain, freight forwarding and engineering, is seen as instrumental in the company’s recent turnaround. He was appointed COO in 2018. His retirement comes just months after similar news from CFO Richard Peretz. Both men will stay in their jobs until after the Christmas rush, when the company’s daily volumes can double. The company moved to allay fears of changes at the top, with CEO David Abney telling Reuters, “We have a strong bench. Succession planning is something we constantly focus on.”  The announcement overshadowed what was otherwise a good news day for the company, as it also announced that profit was up 16 per cent to US$1.75 billion ($2.6 billion) for the third quarter. The company’s results benefited from strong e-commerce demand and rival FedEx’s August breakup with Amazon. India’s e-commerce rules under fire Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking what he described as certainty and predictability in the nation’s business environment, the Economic Times newspaper has reported. Late last year, rule changes on foreign investment in e-commerce forced Walmart-owned Flipkart and rival Amazon to overhaul their business models, an outcome that still rankles with the foreign giants.  In January, Walmart told the US government privately that India’s new rules were regressive and had the potential to hurt trade ties, Reuters reported at the time. This week, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also wrote to the prime minister urging him not to concede any ground to Walmart and other overseas e-commerce players, saying such firms have no regard for the sanctity of Indian laws and policies, India’s Money Control website reports. Uniqlo ad sparks Korean protests The long-running dispute between South Korea and Japan over wartime atrocities has flared up again over a Uniqlo ad, with the Japanese clothing brand facing a consumer backlash. In the ad, which Koreans feel mocks their suffering during the Second World War, the 97-year-old US style icon Iris Apfel is asked by 12-year-old fashion designer Kheris Rogers how she dressed as a teenager, leading Apfel to reply that she couldn’t remember that far back.  In the subtitles in the ad that aired in South Korea, the sentence was translated to ‘Gosh! How can I remember something that goes back 80 years?’ A Korean student, in response, created a YouTube parody video in which he interviews a 90-year-old woman who was forced into slave labour for Mitsubishi. The ad has gone viral, with English and Japanese subtitles, as the woman recounts the horrors that are still very fresh in her memory.  Korean consumers immediately organised a boycott, sending Uniqlo sales plummeting. And as they took to the streets, Uniqlo pulled the ad in South Korea, issuing an apology. Last year, South Korea’s top court ordered Japanese firms to compensate wartime forced labourers. In July, Japan tightened controls on exports of three key chipmaking materials to South Korea, prompting a wide-ranging boycott of Japanese products ranging from beer to pens. Sears gets another lifeline Troubled US retailer Sears has borrowed about US$150 million ($220 million) from lenders, including its billionaire owner Eddie Lampert, as it racks up losses less than a year after it emerged from bankruptcy protection, Reuters reports. The new financing will help stock store shelves for the holiday shopping season. Sears is still in the process of closing stores and has warned employees and vendors of ongoing significant business challenges. It will have about 300 stores at the end of the year. Lampert is no stranger to bankrolling Sears, having extended loans through his hedge fund ESL Investments to the department store chain over the past decade until its financial collapse last year.The new financing is backed by assets that include Sears’ real estate and intellectual property, Reuters says.