By Brad Dorfman and Martinne Geller

(Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc founder Richard Schulze is stepping down as chairman after he failed to tell the board that a former chief executive had an improper relationship with a female employee, the electronics retailer said on Monday.

Best Buy said the board’s investigation had found that former CEO Brian Dunn’s relationship “negatively impacted the work environment,” but involved no misuse of company resources.

“I understand and accept the findings of the Audit Committee,” Schulze said in a statement.

Hatim Tyabji, 67, chairman and CEO of wireless network technology company Bytemobile and head of Best Buy’s audit committee will succeed Schulze. The change takes effect at the end of the company’s annual meeting on June 21, when Schulze, 71, will become chairman emeritus, an honorary position, and serve out his term as director through June 2013.

Schulze’s demotion signals a much-needed separation from the past for Best Buy, which has been criticized for becoming a showroom for televisions and other gadgets that people then buy at Amazon.com (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) or other competitors. Schulze started the company with a partner in 1966.

Best Buy remains in the midst of what it expects to be a six- to nine-month search to replace Dunn, with board member G. Mike Mikan acting as interim CEO.

By Brad Dorfman

(Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc founder and Chairman Richard Schulze is stepping down after he failed to tell the board that former Chief Executive Officer Brian Dunn had violated company policy by having “an extremely close personal relationship” with a female employee, the electronics retailer said on Monday.

Best Buy said an investigation by the board had found that the relationship “negatively impacted the work environment,” but involved no misuse of company resources.

Dunn, who left the company on April 10 during a probe of the allegations, will receive a severance payment of $2.85 million, the company said.

He will also get his previously earned bonus of $1.14 million for fiscal 2012 and previously awarded stock grants, valued at $2.54 million at the close of business on Friday, as part of a separation agreement reached following the investigation.

Including unused vacation time, the value of the agreement is about $6.6 million. Dunn agreed to not work for a competitor for three years, up from the standard one year that is Best Buy’s policy.

Schulze will be succeeded by Hatim Tyabji, chairman of mobile network software company Bytemobile and chairman of Best Buy’s audit committee. The change takes effect at the end of the company’s annual meeting on June 21.

By Brad Dorfman

(Reuters) – The second largest U.S. public pension fund on Thursday said that allegations of bribery in Mexico and a cover up by top management at Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) raises the question of whether top leadership should remain in place at the company.

But officials with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which sued Wal-Mart current and former executives on Thursday, stopped short of calling for CEO Mike Duke to step down.

“The leadership question is on the table,” Jack Ehnes, CEO of CalSTRS, which holds more than 5.3 million Wal-Mart shares, said during a conference call with reporters on Friday when asked whether Duke, a defendant in the lawsuit, should step down.

But he also said that the purpose of the lawsuit was to determine whether the alleged actions occurred and declined to say specifically whether Duke should leave the CEO post.

The lawsuit stems from a New York Times article last month that reported Wal-Mart de Mexico (WALMEXV.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which is 69 percent owned by Wal-Mart, orchestrated a widespread bribery campaign to win market dominance in the last decade

The article alleged senior Wal-Mart executives knew about the matter and tried to cover it up. Duke was head of Wal-Mart’s international business during part of the time covered by the article.

By Mihir Dalal and Brad Dorfman

(Reuters) – Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc’s (GMCR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) stock shed almost half its value on Thursday, as management lost the confidence of Wall Street after the company cut its outlook and again badly missed sales estimates.

Shortsellers who have been questioning Green Mountain’s accounting practices for months said the results add weight to allegations by hedge fund manager David Einhorn and others that the company had been inflating sales and that its high-growth days were over.

“Last night I was like a kid on the night before Christmas at the Christmas tree, while I was waiting for their (earnings) release,” said John Del Vecchio, portfolio manager of The Active Bear ETF (HDGE.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), who has been short Green Mountain since 2011.

“This is the beginning of the end,” he said. “We’re not covering a share.”

A Green Mountain spokeswoman on Thursday declined to answer questions on its accounting or to give any comment.

The maker of Keurig coffee brewers cut its financial forecast for the year on Wednesday and warned of slowing growth after demand for K-Cup coffee refills fell far short of expectations in the March quarter.

By Brad Dorfman

(Reuters) – A deli manager at a Walmart store has started an online petition calling for the resignations of the retailer’s chairman and chief executive officer in the wake of allegations that top management squelched an internal probe into bribery allegations.

Venazi Luna, who works at the Walmart in Pico Rivera, California, near Los Angeles, started the petition on Thursday and had more than 4,300 signatures as of Friday afternoon. Luna, who has worked at Walmart for seven years, said she wanted to get 10,000 online signatures or more.

The petition calls for the resignation of Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chairman S. Robson Walton and CEO Mike Duke as well as for “a thorough and independent investigation by a highly-respected external organization.”

In an interview, Luna said that after she got the signatures, she wanted to bring the petition to Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, to show management that this was what employees wanted.

“Nobody should get away with bribery, and they should be held accountable for that,” Luna said.

Luna, who is from Mexico, is a member of an employee group called Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart, a group aimed at improving conditions for the retailer’s workers.

April 24 (Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Tuesday it has appointed a global officer to oversee compliance with a U.S. law that forbids bribes to foreign officials as it grapples with a bribery scandal that has led to more than $10 billion being cut from its market value.

The move is one of the steps the world’s largest retailer has taken in the past year to manage issues related to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1970s law that forbids bribing foreign officials.

Wal-Mart shares closed 3 percent lower, adding to declines from Monday that wiped $10 billion from the company’s market values.

Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar declined to say when the post was created or who was named to fill it. The person appointed will report to the general counsel for Wal-Mart’s international unit.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an email from a former executive at Wal-Mart de Mexico in September 2005 that described how the Mexican affiliate, known as Walmex, had paid bribes to obtain permits to build stores in the country.

According to the Times, Wal-Mart sent investigators to Mexico City and found a paper trail of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. But the company’s leaders shut down the probe and did not notify U.S. or Mexican law enforcement officials until after the newspaper informed Wal-Mart it was looking into the issue, the Times reported.

The lawyer also identified Eduardo Castro-Wright as the driving force behind years of bribery. Castro-Wright became CEO of Walmex in 2003 and moved on to other senior roles with the company. He is set to retire on July 1.

By Jessica Wohl and Brad Dorfman

(Reuters) – Allegations that Wal-Mart Stores Inc stymied an internal investigation into extensive bribery at its Mexican subsidiary is likely to lead to years of regulatory scrutiny and could eventually cost some top executives their jobs, analysts said.

The New York Times said that in September 2005, a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an email from Sergio Cicero Zapata, a former executive at the company’s largest foreign unit, Wal-Mart de Mexico, describing how the subsidiary had paid bribes to obtain permits to build stores in the country.

Wal-Mart sent investigators to Mexico City and found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million, but the company’s leaders shut down the investigation and neglected to notify U.S. or Mexican law enforcement officials, the Times reported.

According to the Times, current Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke and former CEO Lee Scott, who still sits on the company’s board, were among senior executives allegedly aware of the situation.

“Ultimately, it falls under his watch,” Brian Sozzi, chief equity analyst at NBG, a firm that does investment research, said of Scott. “It falls under Mike Duke, too.”

Other analysts said that Wal-Mart’s structure means any drastic action, such as firings of top executives, may not happen quickly.