A new Target accelera-
tor program focuses on
startups founded by
Gen Z entrepreneurs,
said Kavita Kumar in
the Minneapolis Star
Tribune. The retail
giant is taking a small-
scale version of Silicon
Valley–style venture
capital to its home base
in Minneapolis. From
a pool of 400 early-
stage applicants, Target
chose eight to deliver
pitches to executives
and participate in an
eight-week boot camp
“where the entrepre-
neurs learned about
negotiating, branding,
pitching, and more.”
It also gave each
company $10,000 in
seed funding. As with
other venture-backed
companies, the Target
startups are looking for
ways to use technol-
ogy more efficiently.
One, Mickey’s Mission,
makes customized dolls
for kids with disabilities.
“Right now, it takes
about 50 hours of 3-D
printer time to create
one of her dolls,” says
the company’s founder,
who used the boot
camp to look for ways
to cut that down.Target wants to be
the VC for Gen ZBUSINESS
The country’s two largest newspa-
per chains, GateHouse Media and
Gannett, are merging to “pro-
duce an unprecedented giant in
American daily journalism,” said
Ken Doctor in NiemanLab .org.
Announced this week, the com-
bination will control 265 dailies,
including Gannett-owned USA
Today and regional papers such
as The Arizona Republic and the
Austin American-Statesman. The
merger is “designed to generate $200 to $300 mil-
lion in annual cost savings” from shared services.
However, the private financing required to put the
$1.4 bil lion deal together could cost $150 mil lion
per year, which will substantially limit the merged
company’s “ability to invest in its future.”Three months ago, Gannett
rebuffed a takeover bid by
the private equity firm Alden
Global, said Brooke Sutherland
in Bloomberg.com. Then, it had
“lambasted Alden’s penchant
for aggressive cost cutting and
seemingly endless journalist fir-
ings.” But the terms of this deal
“imply a dizzying level of cost
cuts.” The $300 million is six
times what Gannett had hoped
for from another merger it considered in 2016.
So you can assume the reference to “judicious”
cost reductions is just a euphemism for more
layoffs and closures. “At the end of the day, I’m
not sure there any great options left for news-
paper companies.”Media: Merger links two newspaper giants
Entertainment: Fox disappoints Disney
Disney’s blockbuster Avengers: Endgame couldn’t keep the media
giant from missing analysts’ expectations for the quarter, said Erich
Schwartzel and Maria Armental in The Wall Street Journal. Disney
paid $71.3 billion for the 21st Century Fox properties in March, but
“Fox movies like X-Men: Dark Phoenix flopped, even as Disney’s own
set records.” Disney CEO Robert Iger deemed this week’s earnings call
with investors “among the most complicated in his 14-year tenure,”
saying Fox’s studio performance was “well below” Disney’s goals.
The Fox assets, however, remain key to Disney’s coming rollout of a
$12.99-a-month home-streaming service.
Opioids: Drugmakers offer $10 billion to states
Three major pharmaceutical distributors this week proposed pay-
ing $10 billion to settle claims they helped fuel the opioid epidemic,
said Jef Feeley in Bloomberg.com. McKesson, Cardinal Health, and
AmerisourceBergen made the proposal in talks with a group of state
attorneys general, who have accused the distributors of “ignoring red
flags about the misuse of painkillers” and flooding states with 76 billion
pain pills between 2006 and 2012. The states countered with a demand
for $45 billion to cover costs in the public-health crisis. The distributors
face almost 2,000 additional lawsuits brought by cities and counties.
Barneys: Bankruptcy for an iconic luxury retailer
Barneys is the latest major retailer to go bust, said Vanessa Friedman
and Michael de la Merced in The New York Times. The luxury chain
filed for bankruptcy protection this week. Once a “symbol of creative
cool” filled with “racks of conceptual black,” it’s a victim of the retail
decline, caught between slowing foot traffic and a rent increase—to $30
million a year—at its flagship New York store. The flagship will stay
open as the chain shuts 15 of its 22 stores nationwide.
Procter & Gamble: Shaving woes from Gillette
Procter & Gamble is blaming “hirsute men” for an $8 billion write-
down of its struggling Gillette brand, said Adam Rasmi in Qz.com. The
consumer-products company beat earnings expectations last week, but
said that the value of the 118-year-old Gillette had fallen significantly
since P&G acquired it for $57 billion in 2005. The company said
global currency devaluations were partly to blame, but it also pointed
to “lower shaving frequency” in recent years “as social norms about
shaving relax.” Gillette is also facing “new, lower-priced competitors
like Unilever’s Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s.”32
The news at a glance
Getty,NewscomGannett’s flagship paperQDespite low Fed bench-
mark rates, the average
interest rate consumers
pay on credit cards topped
17 per cent in May, the high-
est in 25 years, according to
the Federal Reserve. There is
currently $850 billion in U.S.
credit-card debt outstanding.
Financial Times
QThe U.S. economy added
164,000 jobs in July. But the
goods-producing sectors
added just 15,000, well
below the average of 58,000
jobs a month in 2018.
The New York Times
QAn Oregon man acciden-
tally tossed a shoebox
con taining his life savings of
$23,260 into a recycling bin.
An employee at a California
recycling facility found the
box, which lost only $320
in transit.
Santa Rosa Press DemocratQOnly 28 percent of kids in
the U.S. ages 6 to 12 played
team sports on a regular
basis last year, down from
45 percent in 2008. But annual
youth sports business rev-
enue has doubled to $15 bil-
lion, thanks to new costs
such as private coaching.
Axios.com
QJeff Bezos sold 960,000
shares of his Amazon stock
last week to fund his space
program, Blue Origin. At
around $1,900 per share, he
collected $1.8 billion.
CNN.com
QFifty-four percent of the
Trump administration’s
trade-war aid for farmers
went to just 10 percent of the
recipients in the program.
Eighty-two farming oper-
a tions received more than
$500,000 each and one farm
has so far received $2.8 mil-
lion in trade-aid payments.
Bloomberg.comThe bottom line