Global Icons has acquired Fred Segal for an undisclosed sum. The company plans to expand the clothing and accessories retailer’s international presence while maintaining its domestic growth, which includes a third Los Angeles location opening on April 6.

Ascena Retail Group, the conglomerate that owns and operates specialty apparel retailers including Ann Taylor, LOFT, Lane Bryant and DressBarn, is selling off its majority stake in Maurices as it explores options to rebuild a profitable business across all banners. Ascena will sell to private equity firm OpCapita LLP for approximately $300 million. Ascena will maintain a minority share and will continue to support Maurices through a managed services agreement, including support for IT, supply chain, sourcing and some back-office functions.

Conversocial, a digital customer experience platform, is acquiring Assist, an enterprise chatbot platform, to improve its ability to offer scalable, conversational customer experiences to retailers and brands. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The combined company seeks to enable brands to transform sales, marketing and customer service with dynamic customer interactions that can seamlessly integrate bots and live agents. As part of the acquisition, Assist CEO Shane Mac, who launched the company with Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens, will become Chief Automation Officer of Conversocial. Conversocial will retain all of Assist’s current staff and will immediately begin hiring for additional positions.

Walmart has acquired Aspectiva, an Israel-based natural language processing (NLP) startup, for an undisclosed sum. Aspectiva will join Walmart’s Store No. 8 incubation arm, where its NLP capabilities will be used to enhance the end-to-end shopping experience. The company will continue operating from its offices in Tel Aviv.

Kibo will acquire Certona, an omnichannel personalization solution provider, combining Kibo’s cloud commerce solutions with Certona’s personalization offerings. The financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

Things Remembered, a retailer that sells personalized gifts and merchandise, will sell most of its business to Enesco, a distributor of giftware, home décor and accessories, upon filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.Financial terms of the sale have not been disclosed, but Enesco reportedly had a deal to acquire the assets for $17.5 million, subject to higher bids. After the sale, Enesco intends to operate the online, direct mail and B2B retail businesses of Things Remembered, as well as an undetermined portfolio of current stores under the Things Remembered brand. Things Remembered currently operates approximately 450 stores in 43 states, but the retailer was preparing to close 220 locations and 30 kiosks before the sale, according to court documents. The same documents indicated that Enesco’s offer would include at least 50 stores, with the option to add more locations.

WorkJam, a digital workplace solution provider, has acquired employee communications software provider Peerio Technologies. The deal will add chat and secure document sharing to WorkJam’s existing team communication and workstream collaboration capabilities. Peerio will provide WorkJam users with three different modes of communication: Live Chat lets corporate employees, store-level managers and associates share messages or files instantly to communicate about day-to-day activities; Channels allow for targeted messages to be sent to specific audiences, such as employees with a certain job or a those subscribed to a particular topic; and Messaging allows communication to be sent directly to a particular user’s inbox. The service allows employees to improve collaboration, whether that involves managers sharing a message with associates or office workers distributing files. All three forms of communication have been designed with security in mind, making the platform appropriate for sharing sensitive information. “The secret sauce around Peerio is the level of security and encryption that surrounds all these technologies,” said Steven Kramer, CEO and Co-Founder of WorkJam in an interview with Retail TouchPoints at the 2019 NRF Big Show. “This is an important topic around digital workforce platforms, because a lot of different tools have taken the approach that it’s…

[Editor’s note: This article initially contained erroneous information. The mistake has been corrected.] Walmart is working with four additional companies to boost its grocery delivery options: Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire and Roadie. The partnerships will help Walmart double its number of locations offering grocery delivery to 1,600 by the end of 2019.

L’Occitane will acquire ELEMIS, a UK-based beauty and skincare producer, for a maximum consideration of $900 million. The deal will strengthen L’Occitane’s omnichannel distribution and product categories, particularly in skincare.