TIMELINE

Feb. 7, 2006

The Talbots Inc. said it will acquire cataloger and retailer The J. Jill Group Inc. for $517 million in cash, beating out rival suitor Liz Claiborne Inc. Both Talbots and J. Jill have a strong presence in the women's apparel arena. J. Jill brings to Talbots a file of 1.8 million last-12-month buyers, 813,000 J. Jill credit cardholders and more than 1.2 million e-mail addresses, according to papers filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During 2005's third quarter, J. Jill posted sales of $103 million, up from $94.9 million a year earlier. But the company's net loss widened slightly, from $2.66 million to $2.69 million. “When you take a look at the basic operations, J. Jill has had a tough time,” said Lee Helman, managing director at investment banking firm Gruppo, Levey & Co. “The catalog business has been shrinking, and the retail business hasn't performed that well.” As for the purchase price, Helman called it “a grand slam if you are an owner of J. Jill stock, but it's a price to choke on if you are anybody else.”

Jan. 26

The Federal Trade Commission won a $10 million judgment, the largest in its history, against information firm ChoicePoint. The court order also required that ChoicePoint set aside $5 million for a consumer redress within 10 business days. The fees stem from incidents in which ChoicePoint released personal records of more than 163,000 consumers to fraud artists posing as lawful businesses, as well as to individuals within legitimate corporate clients who misused their access privileges.

The final judgment also:

• Outlined verification and certification processes ChoicePoint is required to establish before furnishing customer reports to either existing or prospective clients.

• Called for ChoicePoint to set up a comprehensive information security program, and to obtain assessments from an independent security agent once every other year for the next 20 years.

• Required ChoicePoint to make its $10 million payment within seven business days.