San Francisco-based Grand Junction connects retailers and other distributors to more than 700 carriers across North America, and currently handles same-day delivery service for Target's store in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, Target said in a release.
"Target will have immediate access to Grand Junction's technology and carrier network, which will accelerate the work we're doing to improve our speed of delivery," Arthur Valdez, Target's chief supply chain and logistics officer and a former Amazon executive, said in a blog post. "It will also boost our ability to offer new services - like same-day delivery, and even assembly and installation -- to our guests."
Target, which has 1,800 physical stores, plans to expand same-day service to other New York City stores by October and to additional U.S. cities early next year.
The retailer did not disclose terms to acquire Grand Junction, which has 13 employees and was founded in 2014.
Grand Junction coordinates about 6 million local deliveries a month but will drop service to CVS and Office Depot.
Target recently launched next-day delivery of household items, called Target Restock, in its home market of Minneapolis. It also has worked with Instacart for same-day grocery delivery in some markets.
Target's online sales grew 22 percent in the first quarter this year. Walmart's growth was 63 percent in the first quarter this year after acquiring bulk retailer Jet.com for $3.3 billion.
Amazon's Prime service already lets members in about 30 metropolitan areas receive orders as quickly as an hour.
"There's clearly an arms race going on from the mass merchants, recognizing that getting everyday essentials in the hands of customers is critical," Michael Lasser, an analyst at UBS Group AG, said in a note published by Bloomberg. "The purchase of Grand Junction should help Target compete on these terms in a more economical fashion."
Target acquired mattress seller Casper Sleep Inc. for $75 million in another e-commerce transaction this year.
Target was founded in 1902 as Goodfellow Dry Goods. The first Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota, in 1962 and the parent company was renamed the Dayton Corporation in 1967. It became Target Corporation in 2000.
The company had $2.7 billion net income in 2016, according to a financial filing.
Netflix doesn’t need to buy its hits from Hollywood anymore. It can go straight to the hit makers.
Over the weekend, Barron’s launched a broadside against Netflix, arguing that the high-flying company was actually quite vulnerable because it bought all its most popular content from Hollywood: “It is chiefly a hit-renter, not a hit-owner.”
It’s a long-standing critique of Netflix, which picked up steam last week when Disney said it would be pulling (at least some of) its movies off Netflix. Barron’s, which famously called the dot-com bubble in 2000, says Netflix shares could drop 50 percent in the next few years.
Netflix’s answer: It has gone into business with Shonda Rhimes, one of the biggest hit makers on TV.
Netflix has signed Rhimes, the producer behind “Scandal” and many other hits for Disney’s ABC networks for the past 15 years, to a four-year deal. Even for an industry that’s become used to reading about big Netflix deals to bring talent to the service, this one is big.
For starters, Netflix will be spending a huge sum to work with Rhimes. The Wall Street Journal reports that Rhimes got paid $10 million a year to make shows for ABC, and received syndication profits on top of that. Syndication money goes away when you make shows for Netflix, because Netflix shows don’t rerun on other platforms. So Netflix would need to replace that money — and give her a significant raise — to pull her away from Disney.
And that’s before it spends a penny on any of the shows she actually makes.
On the other side of the deal, it’s hard to overstate how important Rhimes was for Disney and ABC. But here’s one way of looking at it: At one point, ABC devoted an entire evening to Rhimes’s shows. Here’s another: Rhimes generated $2 billion for Disney over the course of her work there, someone (presumably who works for Rhimes or Netflix) told the Journal.
Yet another way of looking at it: Netflix has made lots of splashy deals with content makers in the last few years. But many of them — Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and David Letterman, for instance — either weren’t making stuff for Hollywood or were past their commercial peak. Shonda Rhimes is very much in the mix, right now.
Zoom out to the very big picture. It’s certainly reasonably to argue that Netflix’s stock is overvalued — as CEO Reed Hastings did in 2013, when Netflix was trading at a split-adjusted $55 a share. Now it trades around $170.
It’s also reasonable to ask how long Netflix can keep writing big checks for content, or content creators. Right now it relies on Wall Street’s willingness to fund an ever-increasing amount of debt, backed up by its ever-increasing stock price. What happens when/if that changes?
But those arguments are for investors and stockpickers, and we won’t know how it plays out for some time. And remember that history shows us that digital insurgents don’t have to succeed on their own to do long-standing damage: Ask the music labels, who vanquished Napster and pals but are still crippled from that battle, two decades later.
In real time, if you run a big media company, you don’t have time to see what happens. You have to decide what to do, right now.
For the past few years, the media guys have tried to steer some of their stuff away from Netflix and either keep it for themselves or for things they own (see: Hulu). But they kept selling some of their stuff to Netflix anyway, because once you get hooked on Netflix money, it’s hard to stop taking Netflix money.
Now they’re looking at a scenario where they may not have a choice in the matter. Netflix has been paying Disney for the rights to show Shonda Rhimes shows, but it’s not waiting around to see if Disney extends those deals. It’s just going to pay Shonda Rhimes directly.
Who’s next?
Time to Buy General Electric Company (GE) Stock After Massive Decline?
Popular Posts: Recent Posts:
It has not been a good year for General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). GE stock has taken a tumble, falling over 19% in 2017. With a new CEO and near-4% yield, is it time to buy?
General Electric had been talking up the benefits of spinning off its financial business. It said doing so would allow the company to get back to its industrial roots. It would use excess capital to drive growth and get back on track.
Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be the case.
Execution of GE’s industrial businesses hasn’t gone well. Last quarter, industrial revenues fell by 2% year-over-year. Its fiscal year-to-date performance (two quarters) has industrial revenues down 1%. Profits are down 4% and up 2%, respectively, in the same time periods.
Compare that to a company like Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON). Last quarter, revenue grew just 1% with organic sales up 3%, but profits jumped 5.5%. Its six-month year-to-date performance (also two quarters) has net income up 7%. Management upped its full-year earnings guidance, calling for 8% to 10% year-over-year growth.
Perhaps most importantly though, HON saw operating cash flow jump 25% last quarter and free-cash flow grow a whopping 39%.
The Dividend
Why does Honeywell’s cash flow statement matter? Because there has been a growing concern among investors that GE would have to cut its dividend. Now yielding over 3.75%, it seems like a lot of recent selling pressure has been attributed to this concern — that and investors simply throwing in the towel. Who wants to own a dog like GE when there are all these other great dividend stocks to buy?
In the three years prior to 2016, GE had generated operating cash flow in excess of $19 billion per year. In fiscal 2016 though, OCF fell to negative $244 million. This is concerning, although both quarters in 2016 have been OCF positive and perhaps that will relieve investors’ stress to some degree.
Except there’s one other concern.
As a result of the plunge in OCF, obviously free cash flow has taken a hit too. Capital expenditure spending remains pretty consistent, falling to between $7.1 billion and $7.3 billion over the past three years. Through the first two quarters of 2017, FCF is in negative territory.
1" 2" 3" 4" 5" 6" 7" 8" 9" 10" 11" 12" 13" 14" 15" 16" 17" 18" 19" 20" 21" 22" 23" 24" 25" 26" 27" 28" 29" 30" 31" 32" 33" 34" 35" 36" 37" 38" 39" 40" 41" 42" 43" 44" 45" 46" 47" 48" 49" 50" 51" 52" 53" 54" 55" 56" 57" 58" 59" 60" 61" 62" 63" 64" 65" 66" 67" 68" 69" 70" 71" 72" 73" 74" 75" 76" 77" 78" 79" 80" 81" 82" 83" 84" 85" 86" 87" 88" 89" 90" 91" 92" 93" 94" 95" 96" 97" 98" 99" 100" 101" 102" 103" 104" 105" 106" 107" 108" 109" 110" 111" 112" 113" 114" 115" 116" 117" 118" 119" 120" 121" 122" 123" 124" 125" 126" 127" 128" 129" 130" 131" 132" 133" 134" 135" 136" 137" 138" 139" 140" 141" 142" 143" 144" 145" 146" 147" 148" 149" 150" 151" 152" 153" 154" 155" 156" 157" 158" 159" 160" 161" 162" 163" 164" 165" 166" 167" 168" 169" 170" 171" 172" 173" 174" 175" 176" 177" 178" 179" 180" 181" 182" 183" 184" 185" 186" 187" 188" 189" 190" 191" 192" 193" 194" 195" 196" 197" 198" 199" 200" 201" 202" 203" 204" 205" 206" 207" 208" 209" 210" 211" 212" 213" 214" 215" 216" 217" 218" 219" 220" 221" 222" 223" 224" 225" 226" 227" 228" 229" 230" 231" 232" 233" 234" 235" 236" 237" 238" 239" 240" 241" 242" 243" 244" 245" 246" 247" 248" 249" 250" 251" 252" 253" 254" 255" 256" 257" 258" 259" 260" 261" 262" 263" 264" 265" 266" 267" 268" 269" 270" 271" 272" 273" 274" 275" 276" 277" 278" 279" 280" 281" 282" 283" 284" 285" 286" 287" 288" 289" 290" 291" 292" 293" 294" 295" 296" 297" 298" 299" 300" 301" 302" 303" 304" 305" 306" 307" 308" 309" 310" 311" 312" 313" 314" 315" 316" 317" 318" 319" 320" 321" 322" 323" 324" 325" 326" 327" 328" 329" 330" 331" 332" 333" 334" 335" 336" 337" 338" 339" 340" 341" 342" 343" 344" 345" 346" 347" 348" 349" 350" 351" 352" 353" 354" 355" 356" 357" 358" 359" 360" 361" 362" 363" 364" 365" 366" 367" 368" 369" 370" 371" 372" 373" 374" 375" 376" 377" 378" 379" 380" 381" 382" 383" 384" 385" 386" 387" 388" 389" 390" 391" 392" 393" 394" 395" 396" 397" 398" 399" 400" 401" 402" 403" 404" 405" 406" 407" 408" 409" 410" 411" 412" 413" 414" 415" 416" 417" 418" 419" 420" 421" 422" 423" 424" 425" 426" 427" 428" 429" 430" 431" 432" 433" 434" 435" 436" 437" 438" 439" 440" 441" 442" 443" 444" 445" 446" 447" 448" 449" 450" 451" 452" 453" 454" 455" 456" 457" 458" 459" 460" 461" 462" 463" 464" 465" 466" 467" 468" 469" 470" 471" 472" 473" 474" 475" 476" 477" 478" 479" 480" 481" 482" 483" 484" 485" 486" 487" 488" 489" 490" 491" 492" 493" 494" 495" 496" 497" 498" 499" 500" 501" 502" 503" 504" 505" 506" 507" 508" 509" 510" 511" 512" 513" 514" 515" 516" 517" 518" 519" 520" 521" 522" 523" 524" 525" 526" 527" 528" 529" 530" 531" 532" 533" 534" 535" 536" 537" 538" 539" 540" 541" 542" 543" 544" 545" 546" 547" 548" 549" 550" 551" 552" 553" 554" 555" 556" 557" 558" 559" 560" 561" 562" 563" 564" 565" 566" 567" 568" 569" 570" 571" 572" 573" 574" 575" 576" 577" 578" 579" 580" 581" 582" 583" 584" 585" 586" 587" 588" 589" 590" 591" 592" 593" 594" 595" 596" 597" 598" 599" 600" 601" 602" 603" 604" 605" 606" 607" 608" 609" 610" 611" 612" 613" 614" 615" 616" 617" 618" 619" 620" 621" 622" 623" 624" 625" 626" 627" 628" 629" 630" 631" 632" 633" 634" 635" 636" 637" 638" 639" 640" 641" 642" 643" 644" 645" 646" 647" 648" 649" 650" 651" 652" 653" 654" 655" 656" 657" 658" 659" 660" 661" 662" 663" 664" 665" 666" 667" 668" 669" 670" 671" 672" 673" 674" 675" 676" 677" 678" 679" 680" 681" 682" 683" 684" 685" 686" 687" 688" 689" 690" 691" 692" 693" 694" 695" 696" 697" 698" 699" 700" 701" 702" 703" 704" 705" 706" 707" 708" 709" 710" 711" 712" 713" 714" 715" 716" 717" 718" 719" 720" 721" 722" 723" 724" 725" 726" 727" 728" 729" 730" 731" 732" 733" 734" 735" 736" 737" 738" 739" 740" 741" 742" 743" 744" 745" 746" 747" 748" 749" 750" 751" 752" 753" 754" 755" 756" 757" 758" 759" 760" 761" 762" 763" 764" 765" 766" 767" 768" 769" 770" 771" 772" 773" 774" 775" 776" 777" 778" 779" 780" 781" 782" 783" 784" 785" 786" 787" 788" 789" 790" 791" 792" 793" 794" 795" 796" 797" 798" 799" 800" 801" 802" 803" 804" 805" 806" 807" 808" 809" 810" 811" 812" 813" 814" 815" 816" 817" 818" 819" 820" 821" 822" 823" 824" 825" 826" 827" 828" 829" 830" 831" 832" 833" 834" 835" 836" 837" 838" 839" 840" 841" 842" 843" 844" 845" 846" 847" 848" 849" 850" 851" 852" 853" 854" 855" 856" 857" 858" 859" 860" 861" 862" 863" 864" 865" 866" 867" 868" 869" 870" 871" 872" 873" 874" 875" 876" 877" 878" 879" 880" 881" 882" 883" 884" 885" 886" 887" 888" 889" 890" 891" 892" 893" 894" 895" 896" 897" 898" 899" 900" 901" 902" 903" 904" 905" 906" 907" 908" 909" 910" 911" 912" 913" 914" 915" 916" 917" 918" 919" 920" 921" 922" 923" 924" 925" 926" 927" 928" 929" 930" 931" 932" 933" 934" 935" 936" 937" 938" 939" 940" 941" 942" 943" 944" 945" 946" 947" 948" 949" 950" 951" 952" 953" 954" 955" 956" 957" 958" 959" 960" 961" 962" 963" 964" 965" 966" 967" 968" 969" 970" 971" 972" 973" 974" 975" 976" 977" 978" 979" 980" 981" 982" 983" 984" 985" 986" 987" 988" 989" 990" 991" 992" 993" 994" 995" 996" 997" 998" 999" 1000" 1001" 1002" 1003" 1004" 1005" 1006" 1007" 1008" 1009" 1010" 1011" 1012" 1013" 1014" 1015" 1016" 1017" 1018" 1019" 1020" 1021" 1022" 1023" 1024" 1025" 1026" 1027" 1028" 1029" 1030" 1031" 1032" 1033" 1034" 1035" 1036" 1037" 1038" 1039" 1040" 1041" 1042" 1043" 1044" 1045" 1046" 1047" 1048" 1049" 1050" 1051" 1052" 1053" 1054" 1055" 1056" 1057" 1058" 1059" 1060" 1061" 1062" 1063" 1064" 1065" 1066" 1067" 1068" 1069" 1070" 1071" 1072" 1073" 1074" 1075" 1076" 1077" 1078" 1079" 1080" 1081" 1082" 1083" 1084" 1085" 1086" 1087" 1088" 1089" 1090" 1091" 1092" 1093" 1094" 1095" 1096" 1097" 1098" 1099" 1100" 1101" 1102" 1103" 1104" 1105" 1106" 1107" 1108" 1109" 1110" 1111" 1112" 1113" 1114" 1115" 1116" 1117" 1118" 1119" 1120" 1121" 1122" 1123" 1124" 1125" 1126" 1127" 1128" 1129" 1130" 1131" 1132" 1133" 1134" 1135" 1136" 1137" 1138" 1139" 1140" 1141" 1142" 1143" 1144" 1145" 1146" 1147" 1148" 1149" 1150" 1151" 1152" 1153" 1154" 1155" 1156" 1157" 1158" 1159" 1160" 1161" 1162" 1163" 1164" 1165" 1166" 1167" 1168" 1169" 1170" 1171" 1172" 1173" 1174" 1175" 1176" 1177" 1178" 1179" 1180" 1181" 1182" 1183" 1184" 1185" 1186" 1187" 1188" 1189" 1190" 1191" 1192" 1193" 1194" 1195" 1196" 1197" 1198" 1199" 1200" 1201" 1202" 1203" 1204" 1205" 1206" 1207" 1208" 1209" 1210" 1211" 1212" 1213" 1214" 1215" 1216" 1217" 1218" 1219" 1220" 1221" 1222" 1223" 1224" 1225" 1226" 1227" 1228" 1229" 1230" 1231" 1232" 1233" 1234" 1235" 1236" 1237" 1238" 1239" 1240" 1241" 1242" 1243" 1244" 1245" 1246" 1247" 1248" 1249" 1250" 1251"
