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Target sales drop in 1st quarter and retailer warns they will slip for all of 2025

SUMMARY:

  • reports bigger-than-expected Q1 sales decline
  • Forecasts lower sales for 2025 due to economic pressure
  • Customer boycotts and backlash impact performance
  • Shares dropped over 4% pre-market on Wednesday

NEW YORK (AP) — Target’s challenge to revive sales and its status as a cheap chic retailer just got more complicated.

The discounter announced on Wednesday that sales fell more than expected in the first quarter, and the retailer warned they will slip for all of 2025 year as its customers, worried over the impact of and the economy, pull back on spending.

Target also said customer boycotts did some damage during the latest quarter. The company, long a fierce corporate advocate for the rights of Black and + people, scaled back many diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in January after they came under attack by conservative activists and the White House. Target’s retreat created another backlash, with more customers angered by the retailer’s reduction of LGBTQ+-themed merchandise for in June of 2023.

Shares fell 3.5% in midday trading Wednesday.

Quarterly sales fell 2.8% from last year to $23.85 billion, and that was short of the $24.23 billion expected, according to FactSet. Target earned $1.04 billion, or $2.27 per share, for the period ended May 3. That compares with $942 million, or $2.03 per share, in the year-ago period.

Target cut its annual sales projections Wednesday. The company now expects a low-single digit decline for 2025 after projecting a 1% increase for sales in March.

It also forecast annual per-share earnings of $7 to $9, excluding gains from legal settlements this year.

For the year, analysts expect earnings per share of $8.34 on sales of $106.7 billion, on average.

Comparable store sales, those from established stores and online channels, fell 3.8%. That includes a 5.7% drop in store sales and a 4.7% increase in online sales. That reverses a comparable store sales increase of 1.5% in the previous quarter.

The number of transactions across online and physical stores fell 2.4%, and the average ticket dropped 1.4%. Target said it couldn’t reliably estimate the individual impact of each of the factors that were hurting its business.

Target is setting up a new office to be led by Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke focused on faster decision-making to help accelerate sales growth. The company said that current Chief Strategy and Growth Officer Christina Hennington is stepping down from her position and will be in a strategic role until Sept. 7.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said Hennington had been considered a potential successor to Cornell.

“This is a tacit admission that Target isn’t doing a good enough job in some areas, so we welcome it as a potential way to engineer change,” Saunders wrote in a note published Wednesday. “But we caution that it can only accomplish its goals if the closed and defensive culture at Target changes for the better.”

Target is also intensifying efforts to entice customers nervous about the economy. The retailer will offer 10,000 new items starting at $1 — with the majority under $20.

“We’re not satisfied with these results, so we’re moving with urgency to navigate through this period of volatility,” Target CEO Brian Cornell told reporters on a call Tuesday. “We’ve got to drive traffic back into our stores or visits to our site.”

Out of 35 merchandise categories that the company tracks, it’s gaining or maintaining market share in only 15. The company reported some market share gains in women’s swimwear, infant and toddler clothing, and active wear.

The latest results underscore Target’s ongoing struggle in recent years to revive sales, particularly in nonessentials like fashion and home furnishings, as competition grows more fierce.

Back in March, Target had outlined to investors how it was going to bring back its “Tarzhay” magic— defined by affordable but trendy offerings — by expanding its store label brands and shortening the time it takes to get products to the shelves from conception. That will help the company stay close to trends, company executives said.

But it’s been a complicated feat even without the tariff trade wars. Target’s shares have fallen more than 37% in the past 52 weeks.

Target rival Walmart reported strong quarterly sales last week. The nation’s largest retailer said it’s already raised prices on some items due to tariffs and that more price hikes are on the way this summer when the back-to-school shopping season goes into high gear. For example, car seats made in China that sell for $350 at Walmart will likely cost customers another $100, executives said.

Target didn’t offer specifics on tariffs’ impact on prices, but said that it was looking at different ways to offset those costs like shifting sourcing. It said it should be able to offset the majority of the impacts from tariffs.

“We look at competition,” Cornell told reporters. “We make adjustments literally each and every week, so we’re constantly adjusting pricing. Some are going up. Some will be reduced.”

President ‘s threatened 145% import taxes on Chinese goods were reduced to 30% in a deal announced May 12, with some of the higher tariffs on pause for 90 days.

Walmart was able to dodge some of the tariff damage other retailers are suffering because groceries account for about 60% of its U.S. business. Target is more reliant on discretionary items like clothing and accessories, with less than a quarter of its sales coming from groceries.

The company has reduced the number of its store-label products sourced from China to 30% now from 60% in 2017. The company says is on its way to reducing that to 25% by the end of next year. Target is shifting sourcing to Guatemala and Honduras and is looking to sourcing in the U.S.

Target is being pressured on other fronts as well.

The company in January said it would phase out a handful of DEI initiatives, including a program designed to help Black employees advance their careers and promote Black-owned businesses. Conservative activists and President Trump have sought to dismantle DEI policies in the federal government, schools, and at private businesses.

The pastor of a Georgia megachurch who led a nationwide 40-day of Target stores in response called last month for a continuation of that effort.

The Rev. Jamal Bryant is seeking a reinvigorated commitment from Target on diversity, and he wants more support from Target for Black-owned banks and businesses.

Target operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people.

US stocks drift lower as mixed profit reports from retailers and higher Treasury yields weigh

SUMMARY:

  • S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow futures dropped ahead of market open
  • warns of lower sales amid and weak consumer demand
  • rose nearly 1% on reported Israeli threats to Iran
  • Market rattled by geopolitical and economic uncertainty

NEW YORK (AP) — Most U.S. stocks are falling on Wednesday after some of the country’s biggest retailers gave mixed forecasts for where they see their profits heading under the uncertainty caused by President ‘s trade war.

The S&P 500 was down 0.2% in afternoon trading and on track for a second straight drop after breaking a six-day winning streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 338 points, or 0.8%, as of 12:56 p.m. Eastern time, while gains for Google’s parent company and a handful of other influential tech stocks sent the Nasdaq composite 0.3% higher.

Stocks were also feeling pressure from higher Treasury yields in the bond market. Such rises in yields can push down prices of all kinds of investments, and yields have been climbing in part because of concerns that tax cuts under consideration in Washington could pile trillions of more dollars onto the U.S. government’s debt.

Target slumped 4.1% after the retailer reported weaker profit and revenue than analysts expected for the start of the year. The company said it felt some pain from boycotts by customers. It had scaled back many diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives early this year following criticism by the White House and conservative activists, which drew its own backlash.

Perhaps more worryingly for , Target also cut its forecast for profit over the full year.

Lowe’s fell more modestly after after reporting a profit for the latest quarter that edged past analysts’ expectations. The home-improvement retailer also said it’s sticking with its forecasts for sales and profit over the full year, even with “near-term uncertainty and market headwinds,” according to CEO Marvin Ellison.

Its stock was most recently down 1.6%.

Carter’s, which sells apparel for babies and young children, sank 9.9% after cutting its dividend. New CEO Doug Palladini said the company made the move in part because of investments it anticipates making in upcoming years, as well as the possibility that it “may incur significantly higher product costs as the result of the new proposed tariffs on products imported into the United States.”

On the winning side of Wall Street was Keysight Technologies, which not only topped analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue in the latest quarter but also raised its forecast for growth over its full fiscal year. The hardware, software and services company rose 3.2%.

Homebuilder Toll Brothers climbed 2.6% after beating analysts’ forecasts for profit and revenue in the latest quarter. It stood by its forecast for how many homes it will deliver this fiscal year, as a shortage of housing nationwide helps offset what it called a “softer demand environment.”

Gains for a handful of influential tech stocks also helped limit the market’s overall losses, even though four out of five stocks within the S&P 500 were falling. Alphabet rose 4.4%, and chip company Advanced Micro Devices climbed 1.6%.

A growing number of companies have recently said tariffs and uncertainty about the economy are making it difficult to guess what the upcoming year will bring. Others, including Walmart, have said they’ll have to raise prices to offset Trump’s tariffs.

U.S. stocks have recently recovered most of their steep losses from earlier in the year as Trump has delayed or rolled back many of his stiff tariffs. Investors are hopeful that Trump will lower his tariffs more permanently after reaching trade deals with other countries.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.54% from 4.48% late Tuesday and from just 4.01% early last month. That’s a notable move in the bond market.

Such yields effectively show how much in interest governments are having to pay investors in order to borrow money, and they’ve been on the rise for developed economies around the world. That’s partly because governments are continuing to borrow more cash to pay their bills, while central banks like the have cut back on their own investments in government bonds.

Moody’s Ratings became the last of the three major ratings agencies late last week to downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating on concerns that it may be heading toward an unsustainable amount of debt.

“We do not think that the downgrade matters by itself,” Bank of America strategists wrote in a BofA Global Research report, “but it has served as a wake up call for those investors who had been ignoring the ongoing fiscal discussion.”

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia

London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% after a report said inflation in the United Kingdom spiked to its highest level for more than a year in April.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% after a report said Japan’s exports have slowed due to tariffs

___

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Notes: Eds: UPDATES: trading.

Trump lifts Empire Wind pause, offshore project resumes

SUMMARY:

  • Trump administration lifts pause on construction
  • ‘s $2.5B project to power 500,000 NY homes
  • Over 1,500 construction jobs saved with project’s resumption
  • NY leaders, labor groups, and Norway backed project’s revival

 

The Trump administration is allowing work on a major offshore wind project for New York to resume. 

The developer, the Norwegian energy company Equinor, said Monday it was told by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that a stop-work order has been lifted for the Empire Wind project, allowing construction to resume. 

Work has been paused since Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last month directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction and review the permits. Burgum said at the time that it appeared former President Joe Biden’s administration had “rushed through” the approvals. Equinor spent seven years obtaining permits and has spent more than $2.5 billion so far on a project that is one-third complete. 

Equinor President and CEO Anders Opedal thanked President for allowing the project to move forward, saving about 1,500 construction jobs and investments in U.S. . He also expressed appreciation to New York’s governor, New York City’s mayor, members of Congress and labor groups, as well as Norwegian officials who worked to save the project. The Norwegian government owns a majority stake in Equinor. 

“We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,” Opedal said in a statement. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it took countless conversations with Equinor and White House officials, and the involvement of labor and business interests, to emphasize the project’s importance and get Empire Wind back on track. Equinor is building Empire Wind south of Long Island, New York, to provide power in 2026 for more than 500,000 New York homes. 

“New York’s economic future is going to be powered by abundant, that helps our homes and businesses thrive. I fought to save clean energy jobs in New York — and we got it done,” Hochul said in a statement Monday. 

The Interior Department said Tuesday the pause on the project was lifted while a review of the permits continues. 

Large offshore wind farms have been making electricity for three decades in Europe and, more recently, in Asia. But the industry has struggled to grow in the U.S. due to high costs, difficulties growing a supply chain for materials and the lengthy permitting process. 

Trump has prioritized fossil fuels and moved against since returning to the White House. One of his first acts was ordering a pause of offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and the issuance of approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects. But the administration’s targeting of Empire Wind, a project already underway, took that a step further. 

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement Friday that while unleashing America’s energy dominance, Trump “paused certain wind projects that are detrimental to our beloved wildlife including birds and whales.” 

There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While wind turbines can pose a risk to birds, wildlife conservation organizations say they support the responsible development of offshore wind because is a bigger threat. 

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Monday that lifting the stop-work order is welcome news. Empire Wind will greatly benefit the economy on Long Island and the environment for all New Yorkers, he said in a statement. 

Offshore wind advocates also celebrated the decision. It’s a win for workers, the industry and companies in places like Louisiana, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, helping to build projects in the Northeast, the Oceantic Network said in a statement. 

Equinor said on May 9 it would be forced to abandon Empire Wind within days unless the administration relented on its order that stopped construction. Equinor was spending up to $50 million per week and had 11 vessels on standby. 

Equinor finalized the federal lease in March 2017, during Trump’s first term. The federal government approved the construction and operations plan in February 2024. 

New York aims to obtain 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 9 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035. New York is getting some from the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork that opened a year ago, operated by different companies east of Montauk Point, New York. 

Virginia Western Community College president named

Laura Treanor will be the fifth president of ‘s , succeeding , the school’s leader since 2001.

Treanor, who earned a doctorate in education at , was selected from 61 candidates, according to a Tuesday afternoon announcement from the Virginia Community College System. She will assume the role on July 1.

Currently, Treanor works as provost, senior vice president for instructional services and dean of faculty at Vincennes University in Indiana. She’s worked there since 2018.

At Baker College in Michigan, Treanor held several roles, including system associate vice president for institutional effectiveness.

“Dr. Treanor is an experienced educational leader well-equipped to take the college to new heights in regional workforce development through academic, training and credentialing excellence,” Todd Putney, chair of the local advisory board for Virginia Western Community College, said in a statement.

In March, two finalists in addition to Treanor were named for the position: Daryl L. Minus, vice president of enrollment management and student success at Southside Virginia Community College, and Jamonica Rolle, college provost and senior vice president of academic affairs and college operations at Broward College in Florida.

In Tuesday’s announcement, , chancellor of the Virginia Community College System, referenced the significant impact Sandel had at VWCC.

Man wearing a blazer and tie stands in front of windows.
Robert H. Sandel will retire as president of Virginia Western Community College in June 2025. Photo courtesy VWCC.

“Succeeding Dr. Robert Sandel, who has led Virginia Western for more than two decades of transformative service, Dr. Treanor will have a hard act to follow,” he said in a statement, “but I am confident that she will build on VWCC’s outstanding history of serving its communities and its diverse student populations.”

Sandel previously served as president of Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap. Earlier this month, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from . The citation for the honor called him an innovator and said, “Sandel has transformed in the region, expanding access, promoting workforce and economic development, fostering community engagement and establishing regional partnerships.”

Lighthouse Labs rebrands to Lighthouse Network

SUMMARY:

  • has rebranded to to reflect its expanded focus beyond the traditional 11-week , offering broader and ongoing support to alumni .
  • The accelerator will now run only one per year, dedicating the rest of the year to supporting past participants with initiatives such as investor roadshows, mentor support, fundraising assistance and advanced curricula.
  • Lighthouse is testing new programs for more mature startups and launching a sales operations curriculum to help improve revenue generation, addressing key challenges faced by alumni.
  • A founder summit will debut later this year, gathering all alumni in for networking, mentorship reconnections and business development activities.

Richmond-based accelerator Lighthouse Labs last week announced it is expanding its services and rebranding itself as Lighthouse Network.

Since its founding in 2012, Lighthouse has supported 149 companies, raised over $350 million in capital, helped founders raise an average of $1.8 million each and created over 1,500 jobs. The accelerator’s 11-week program provides founders with support from mentors, industry experts and investors, and free office space.

Managing Director said the accelerator is rebranding to reflect various changes in its operations, including creating multiple initiatives and programs to help companies and founders who have already completed the 11-week program. She said this new effort is meant to continue to help companies grow post-acceleration.

While the accelerator will still offer an 11-week program, it will only be for one cohort a year instead of two, Irwin said.

“What that helps us to do is, on the second half of every year, we now get to dig into all of the founders who have ever gone through Lighthouse and make sure that they’re supported in the way they need to be supported,” Irwin said. “And so that’s giving them additional investor roadshow opportunities, giving them additional mentor support, helping them with their [fundraising] if they are raising, and then also building out additional curriculum that they can participate in based on the level of growth that they’re in.”

She said Lighthouse is currently testing a new program to support startups that are a little further along than the ones entering the 11-week program but still need the mentors and the connections that Lighthouse has. Several startups struggled with sales in their earlier days, she added, and Lighthouse is launching a sales operations curriculum — bringing in some of its best mentors — to conduct several sessions to help the startups improve their revenue and sales operations.

“So it gives us a much more robust service offering to the companies that we’re supporting, and really helps us go back to our mission of investing in the lives of founders, because now this support is very founder-centric and founder development-focused, rather than just like, ‘Let’s help the company accelerate for three months,’” Irwin said.

Later this year, Lighthouse will launch its first founder summit, inviting any founder who has ever gone through Lighthouse to come to Richmond for 2 1/2 days, Irwin said. The summit will allow alumni to know each other better, reconnect with mentors, reconnect with investors and work on their businesses.

Since most new programs and initiatives Lighthouse alumni, Irwin said they are not reflected on the new website. Lighthouse, which has three staff members, will contact alumni to inform them of the new programs it offers.

Home Depot says it doesn’t expect to boost prices because of tariffs

Home Depot doesn’t expect to raise prices because of , saying it has spent years diversifying the sources for the goods on its shelves.

Billy Bastek, executive vice president of merchandising, said during a conference call on Tuesday that Home Depot’s suppliers have shifted sourcing across several countries and that the company doesn’t expect any single country outside of the U.S. will represent more than 10% of its purchases 12 months from now.

“We don’t see broad based price increases for our customers at all going forward,” he said.

Other companies, domestic and foreign, have warned customers that price hikes are on the way due to a trade war kicked off by the U.S.

Walmart said last week that it has already raised prices and will have to do so again in the near future. Late Monday, Subaru of America said it would raise prices on some of its most popular models by as much as $2,000.

President lambasted Walmart, saying on social media over the weekend that the retail giant should “eat” the additional costs created by his tariffs.

As Trump has jacked up import taxes, he has tried to assure a skeptical public that foreign producers would pay for those taxes and that retailers and automakers would absorb the additional expenses. Most economists are deeply skeptical of those claims and have warned that the trade penalties would worsen inflation.

Tariffs on materials like lumber are also a concern for both homebuilders and home buyers. A homebuyer now needs to earn at least $114,000 a year to afford a $431,250 home — the national median listing price in April, according to data released this month by Realtor.com

Additional material costs would put home ownership out of reach for more potential buyers, though Home Depot is somewhat insulated as it sources the majority of its lumber in the U.S.

Early last year, the company said that about 17% of its wood is sourced from Canada. The company would not say Tuesday if those import levels have changed though after negotiations, Canadian lumber was exempted from additional 25% U.S. tariffs.

During the first quarter, Home Depot’s revenue climbed as customers spent slightly more on smaller home projects.

A number of U.S. companies have lowered or pulled financial guidance for investors as tariffs launched by the the Trump administration scramble world trade but on Tuesday, Home Depot stuck by earlier projections of sales growth at around 2.8%.

Shares of the Atlanta company dipped slightly on Tuesday.

Revenue rose to $39.86 billion from $36.42 billion a year earlier, beating the $39.3 billion that analysts polled by FactSet expected.

Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer’s health, edged down 0.3%. In the U.S., comparable store sales climbed 0.2%.

anticipated a 0.1% decline in same-store sales.

Customer transactions rose 2.1% in the quarter. The amount shoppers spent climbed to $90.71 per average ticket from $90.68 in the prior-year period.

“Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations as we saw continued customer engagement across smaller projects and in our spring events,” Home Depot Chair and CEO Ted Decker said in a statement.

Home improvement retailers like Home Depot have been dealing with homeowners putting off bigger projects because of increased borrowing costs and lingering concerns about inflation.

The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows.

Sales of previously occupied homes have dropped as elevated mortgage rates and rising prices discouraged home shoppers.

Existing home sales fell 5.9% in March from February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units, the National Association of Realtors said. The March sales decline was the largest monthly drop since November 2022, and marks the slowest sales pace for the month of March going back to 2009.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

“One of the central problems for Home Depot is the skittish housing market,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said in a statement. “While last quarter was robust, home sales declined by 3.1% year-over-year this quarter as consumers were deterred from moving by continued high interest rates and growing economic uncertainty. This lack of recovery makes it difficult to drive home improvement spending.”

For the three months ended May 4, Home Depot Inc. earned $3.43 billion, or $3.45 per share. A year earlier the Atlanta-based company earned $3.6 billion, or $3.63 per share.

Stripping out certain items, earnings were $3.56 per share. Wall Street was calling for earnings of $3.60 per share.

Expanded emergency dept. opens at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital

Carilion Memorial Hospital’s expanded , billed as one of the largest in the state, opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

The department is the first facility to welcome patients in the Roanoke hospital’s new Crystal Spring Tower, a $500 million expansion for Roanoke Memorial that’s expected to fully launch this summer. The tower will also be home to Carilion’s Cardiovascular Institute, which will house all cardiac and vascular care, including three cardiothoracic surgery operating rooms. Contractors on the project are Alabama-headquartered Robins & Morton and Branch Builds, a Roanoke-based construction management firm.

The Roanoke hospital’s expanded emergency department includes a dedicated pediatric emergency waiting area, triage space and patient rooms, as well as the region’s first dedicated Level 1 bay.

Photo of pediatric waiting room in the expanded emergency department. Photo courtesy Carilion Clinic
Pediatric waiting room in the expanded emergency department. Photo courtesy

Carilion Roanoke Memorial has the region’s only Level 1 and pediatric trauma center. The designation means the facility is able to provide comprehensive trauma care for all injuries.

Other features of the expanded emergency room are four other trauma bays, an expanded observation unit and 125 emergency department beds, a 54-bed increase over the former emergency department.

A new also opened Tuesday to serve the health system’s three Carilion Life-Guard helicopters and other medevac teams, which bring patients from more than 65 other facilities, according to Hannah Curtis, a spokesperson for Carilion Clinic.

“The ED and helipad expanded access will help to meet growing community needs and offer a seamless entry for patients in need of acute care when seconds matter — like heart attack or stroke patients,” she said in a statement.

The facility also comes with a new entrance: the public can drop patients off at a traffic circle in front of the Crystal Spring Tower. Visitors also have the option of parking in a new Carilion garage at the corner of McClanahan Street and Jefferson Street.

Initially, the expanded emergency department had been slated to open April 15 but the opening was pushed back due to construction issues.

Based in Roanoke, Carilion Clinic is a nonprofit health care organization serving nearly 1 million people in Virginia through hospitals, outpatient specialty centers and primary care practices. It has more than 13,000 employees. Earlier this month, Carilion received the state’s blessing to move forward with a kidney transplant program.

EU regulators to decide on Mars-Kellanova merger in June

Antitrust regulators with the have set a June 25 deadline to decide whether to approve -based candymaker and pet care giant ‘ $35.9 billion acquisition of snack producer , which was announced last August.

According to the European Commission website, the EU’s Directorate-General for Competition will issue a decision next month on whether the deal can go through, or it can open a four-month investigation if it has concerns, Reuters reported this week. The deadline was set Monday.

The two companies said last year that they hope to close the deal this August, although the closing date could be extended up to 12 months if the businesses don’t receive necessary regulatory approvals by then.

Mars, which produces M&M’s, Snickers and Twix, announced the all-cash deal in August 2024, which would bring Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Pringles, Eggo and other under Mars’ ownership. The publicly owned Kellanova was created in October 2023 when Kellogg split into two companies, with W.K. Kellogg Co. producing breakfast cereals and Kellanova its snack brands.

Mars is Virginia’s largest privately held company and the fourth-largest in the United States. In recent years, it has made acquisitions in pet care and candy sectors in an effort to double its sales by 2033. According to Mars, Kellanova brands will be part of the Mars Snacking division headquartered in Chicago and led by Mars Snacking Global President Andrew Clarke after the deal is completed.

Barkin: Affordable housing key to rural economic growth

SUMMARY:

  • 59 rural counties in Fed’s Fifth District grew from 2020 to 2023
  • Counties seeing growth due to affordable and efforts to attract workforce, says
  • Exurbs benefiting from proximity to metro areas, hybrid work
  • Natural or created amenities are also attracting working-age population

The key to population, and thus economic, growth in small towns is available, and workforce investments, President and CEO said Tuesday at the Investing in Rural America Conference in .

“Population growth is a key component of economic growth, and economic growth means more spending, more jobs, higher tax revenue to fund investments and improved standards of living,” he said.

Between 2010 and 2020, nearly three-fourths of rural counties in the Fed’s Fifth District — Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and most of West Virginia — had population losses. Between 2020 and 2023, however, 59 of those 217 counties (27%) saw population growth. But, Barkin cautioned, not every shrinking rural community is able to grow.

In the 59 counties that reversed their declining population trends, growth primarily occurred in exurbs and secondarily in places with natural or well-crafted amenities.

Nearly two-thirds of the 59 counties are within extended commuting distance of a large metro area, Barkin said. Exurbs benefitted from the pandemic because of their lower costs of living and available outdoor and other space. Also, hybrid policies made longer commutes more tolerable to workers moving to exurbs.

The key to localities’ growth is the availability of housing at affordable prices, he said.

“When I am in the outskirts of Greenville, South Carolina, or Charlotte, or Raleigh, or , or even in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia outside of D.C., I see huge plots of land being developed at scale by the major home builders,” Barkin said.

The challenge facing large developments in some exurbs, though, is NIMBYism, he said: “Where it is strong, development efforts face added time, cost and uncertainty.”

One example of a small town that has increased housing and had population growth beyond its neighboring counties’ is Warsaw, in Richmond County, in Virginia’s Northern Neck. Leaders there largely credit their growth to “a strong residential push focused on worker housing,” Barkin said.

Town leaders recently approved 321 units in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, which will be a 45% increase in the number of units in Warsaw. There are also plans to build 100 more single-family homes, according to Barkin.

Barkin has spoken repeatedly about the importance of housing for economic growth. In November 2023, he said at the Virginia Governor’s Housing Conference that communities were going to need to make innovative decisions to create more affordable housing if they wanted to attract talent.

Barkin referenced his speech from that conference in June 2024, speaking to Virginia Business after an event held by the Risk Management Association’s Richmond chapter.

“What I’m seeing is that there’s a lot more permitting, a lot more construction in North Carolina and South Carolina than there is in Virginia,” he said. Factors contributing to the difference, he said then, are land availability — in terms of affordability and buildability — around cities, as well as NIMBYism.

During the Big Dipper Innovation Summit in Richmond in April, in response to an audience question about how Virginia could improve economic growth in the next decade, Barkin said: “One thing you can’t miss as a ‘windshield warrior’ is how much housing is being put up in North and South Carolina compared to what’s being put up in Virginia, Maryland, D.C. … Housing that is affordable for young workers is a critical key to growing an economy.”

What promotes growth

On Tuesday, Barkin said that growing counties outside of exurbs benefit from natural or well-crafted amenities, like towns in the Blue Ridge Mountains or on the coast in the Northern Neck. These communities have also benefited from broadband improvements. Crafted amenities like festivals, revitalized downtowns and riverwalks, for example, also help attract working-age people by fostering a sense of community.

Rural communities that aren’t near a big city and don’t have natural amenities can still focus on attracting jobs as a way to grow, Barkin said, but focusing on incentives and site availability is “no longer sufficient.”

“The communities that seem to be winning in this game are also winning through investments in workforce,” he said. “With talent so short, companies need to be convinced they can find and retain the workers they need.”

Salisbury, Maryland, and its surrounding counties provide another case study. They have had strong post-pandemic job growth, Barkin said, as the area has invested in workforce growth. Salisbury University has an entrepreneurship center, incubator space, and competitions, while Wor-Wic Community College has fast turnaround programs that help fill workforce gaps. The area is also investing in high-speed internet, housing and downtown beautification.

“The places that have started growing are building worker housing, investing in skill-building and supporting workers’ whole-life needs,” Barkin said.

Iridium to invest $13M to relocate Tysons HQ, add 117 jobs

SUMMARY:

  • Iridium is investing over $13 million to expand its headquarters in , increasing its space by 20,000 square feet and creating 117 jobs, with the new facility expected to open in March 2026
  • The expansion supports Iridium’s growing workforce and new services, including GPS protection and direct connections for consumer devices like smartphones
  • Iridium serves a global customer base across government and commercial sectors through a network of over 500 partner companies

-based global satellite communications company will invest more than $13 million to move its headquarters in Fairfax County and create 117 jobs, announced Tuesday.

The company will relocate its headquarters from its 35,000-square-foot space at 1750 Tysons Blvd. to a new 55,000-square-foot space at 1676 International Drive. Building renovations are underway, and the site is expected to be ready for use in March 2026.

The company says it needs larger headquarters to accommodate more employees and expand its services, such as protecting GPS against spoofing and jamming, as well as new initiatives to directly connect smartphones and other consumer devices to its satellite constellation.

“Iridium’s decision to expand its headquarters and create 117 new high-quality jobs in Virginia is a clear signal that the commonwealth remains the destination of choice for global technology companies,” Youngkin said in a statement. “The proximity and access to top-tier talent, world-class infrastructure and federal partners offers a strategic advantage to companies like Iridium that are redefining innovation and connectivity. We are proud to support Iridium’s growth in Virginia.”

The company currently employs 271 people throughout Virginia, of whom 126 report to the headquarters facility. The company says the new positions brought by the expansion will report to the new headquarters, bringing the workforce up to almost 400.

Iridium’s mobile voice and data satellite communications network is used in ships, planes and land vehicles and for Internet of Things systems. Its global customer base includes government, defense and public safety agencies as well as aviation, maritime, utilities, oil and gas, mining, forestry, heavy equipment and transportation industries.

Company spokesperson Jordan Hassin said Iridium has a partner ecosystem of over 500 companies worldwide that integrate its tech into their products and services. Then they sell those products and services.

“The average person is not going to buy something directly from Iridium, but they would buy something from any one of the kind of retailers that we have all around the world or manufacturers of equipment,” he said.

In addition to its headquarters in Fairfax, Iridium also has a satellite and network operations center in Loudoun County. The company also has satellite operations and primary gateway and technical support centers in Arizona. It also has additional ground stations in Alaska, Chile and Norway.

Iridium CEO Matt Desch said in a statement that the Fairfax headquarters has the benefit of being in a centralized location just outside of the nation’s capital. He said the area “has many business-friendly benefits, from a corporate-friendly operating environment and convenience of two nearby major airports, to top institutions of , a strong technology-focused industry presence and an excellent local talent pipeline.”

The worked with on the project, and Youngkin approved a $400,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Fairfax with the project.

In 2024, Iridium reported a total revenue of $830.7 million, up 5% from 2023, and net income of $112.8 million, an improvement from $15.4 million in 2023.