Electronics

Apple's vice-president for retail Ron Johnson will leave the company in August. He will succeed Mike Ullman, who has been chairman of American department store chain JC Penney since 2004.

Genius Bar

Ron Johnson was the inventor of Apple's “Genius Bar”, where customers can get tech support for free. He has been responsible for Apple's Stores since the first one opened in 2001 – overseeing over 320 later store openings in 11 different countries. Since then, they have attracted over a billion people.

52 year old Johnson will face a serious challenge at 1100 store chain JC Penney, where sales have been dropping for the last three years as consumers left the chain for cheaper discounters like Target – the chain where Johnson, in a strange twist of fate, worked for 15 years before moving to Apple.

JC Penney claims Johnson will buy Penney shares for 50 million dollars to show “his faith in the long term potential of the group”. The news overjoyed investors and the share prise soared to +17%.
 
 

Chinese computer producer Lenovo has launched a takeover bid on German competitors Medion, known best for producing Aldi's electronics.

The Chinese company will buy 36.6% of shares from Gerd Brachman, who is Medion's majority shareholder with 56%. Given its price of 13 euro per share, Lenovo will pay Brachman 231 million euro, esteeming Medion's worth to be near 630 million euro. The takeover is conditional and will only take place if Lenovo succeeds in getting another 14% of shares elsewhere.

Lenovo is the world's number 4 computer producer (behind HP, Acer and Dell) with a market share of 9.7%. Medion will add only 0.3% to that, but will be Lenovo's largest takeover since buying IBM's computer department in 2004.