#business

Lumen Completes Sale of Consumer Fiber-to-the-Home Business to AT&T

More info online

The reserves replacement discussion on the earnings investor presentation makes no sense at all. It shows 10 year increases but says RRR was 95%.

Anyhow, last year we really only added reserves from Hess. Otherwise, we are a shrinking business.

I just got my buainess update email.
I was waiting for it long time.
Cheers!!

Poor businesses.

I'm so over corporate life. The thought of dealing with another reorg or layoff cycle makes me want to just walk out. I'm seriously thinking about using my skills to start a small business. It'd be crazy hard, but at least I'd be my own boss and in control of the chaos.

Hi, is anyone impacted in evernorth or accredo ? Particularly Business Analyst title? Is this layoff for fulltime or contractors?

So many threads out there.. lets just track here..

I have not received any email so far. -EviCore, Business analytics

Made it in the office in an Icy region I'd rather not disclose. A big thank you to the local maintenance that cleared every bit of snow & ice from our parking lot, walkways, and sidewalks. You all are awesome. Thank you on this required Business as usual day.

Does anyone believe this business can recover, or has years of ineffective leadership taken it down too far. Rumors are that this business is next on the spin-off list after MMS.

Please continue working hard every day business as usual bringing in revenue to help support upper level retired management and perhaps one day you too shall travel first class, enjoy fine dinning, five star accommodations, fun toys and cosmetics. Thank you for your service.

Few of us were laid off today. Given 2 weeks notice and severance.

Phillips 66 presents itself as an integrated downstream energy company—one designed to balance cycles, allocate capital across segments, and deliver more durable returns than simpler peers. On paper, that strategy is sensible. The challenge is that the benefits of integration remain difficult to see in either operating results or market valuation.

Under Mark Lashier, integration is frequently cited as a core advantage. But integration is not defined by asset mix or corporate structure. It is defined by whether complexity earns its keep.

So far, the evidence is mixed at best.

If integration were working as intended, it would show up in at least one of three ways:

1) Meaningfully lower earnings volatility than pure-play refiners

2) Superior capital efficiency driven by portfolio-level optimization

3) Consistently stronger shareholder returns than simpler competitors

Phillips 66 has not reliably delivered any of the three.

Refining continues to dominate quarterly performance and investor sentiment. Volatility in one segment regularly overwhelms stability elsewhere in the portfolio. The diversification benefit that is central to the integration story often feels theoretical rather than observable. When one business sets the tone for the entire enterprise, the portfolio is diversified in name only.

This is not an asset-quality issue. Phillips 66 owns strong positions across refining, midstream, and chemicals. Nor is it an employee issue—teams across the company execute in difficult, cyclical markets. The problem is structural: complexity has not translated into resilience or premium valuation.

Markets tend to be blunt about this. Companies that combine multiple businesses without producing clear cross-segment advantages are typically valued at a discount, not because investors misunderstand them, but because the burden of complexity outweighs the benefits. Phillips 66 continues to be priced like a company where scale and breadth dilute focus rather than amplify it.

Leadership compensation underscores this tension.

Lashier’s most recently disclosed compensation, at approximately $22.6 million, places him near the top of the energy peer group. That level of pay implicitly signals confidence that Phillips 66 is being run at a leadership premium—that integration is working, that capital is being optimally allocated, and that complexity is being actively converted into value.

Shareholder outcomes tell a more restrained story.

Over the past year, Phillips 66 delivered solid but not standout returns—better than the broader energy sector, but trailing several refining-focused peers operating with far simpler portfolios and fewer internal trade-offs. For a company that argues its structure creates advantage, delivering merely “good” performance relative to best-in-class peers raises an uncomfortable question: what is the complexity buying?

There is also a less quantifiable—but critical—dimension of integration: leadership proximity to execution.

Integration is not forged in earnings calls or strategy decks. It is built where trade-offs are resolved—between segments competing for capital, between systems that don’t fully align, and between teams asked to move in sync without shared incentives. Sustained senior leadership presence in those environments matters. When that presence is limited, integration remains conceptual rather than operational.

None of this diminishes the effort of employees. Phillips 66 has capable people doing hard work in volatile conditions. The gap lies between strategy and operating reality.

Until integration demonstrably reduces volatility, improves capital outcomes, or delivers consistently superior returns, it will remain a promise rather than a proven advantage—and markets will continue to treat it accordingly.

When separating from WBA, market cap for the combined WBA was worth 8 billion. After they separated into individual companies like Walgreens, Boots, Alliance, Village MD etc, how much do you think just Walgreens by itself is worth? I don’t think it would be simply divide by three. Walgreens might be biggest out of all and do you think might be worth at least 4 billion out of 8 billion? If the WBA stock was still trading, would it be like $5.5 (half of what it was during buyout)? If that is true, would Walgreen’s current market cap be around 2.5 billion?

Does anyone know when the DTs are merging into AFO? I hate to see this because we will be treated like Wiretechs.

If it hits $360, that means it's time to exit my position.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ibm-stock-price-top-pick-2026-35af20b3

By: Mackenzie Tatananni
Updated Jan 08, 2026, 2:59 pm EST / Original Jan 08, 2026, 2:15 pm EST

Skeptics may argue that International Business Machines has lost the clout it had decades ago, but one analyst is doubling down on his bullish bet on the stock heading into the new year.

Much of the negative noise surrounding IBM appears to be unfounded, according to Oppenheimer analyst Param Singh, who has chosen IBM as one of his top picks for 2026. He rates the stock at Outperform with a $360 price target.

IBM stock was 2.1% higher at $303.04 on Thursday as the Nasdaq Composite traded in the red. Singh’s price target suggests the stock can rise another 19%.

Attitudes on the stock are indubitably mixed. Of 22 analysts polled by FactSet, 11 rate IBM at Buy, while seven rate it at Hold, and four at Sell. So why the vote of confidence?

“Bears have the estimates wrong, making expectations low into the print,” Singh said, referring to IBM’s fourth-quarter earnings report due later this month. He believes IBM can deliver durable growth by consistently raising prices, and described its portfolio of software as “sticky,” meaning clients repeatedly return to the products even though alternatives exist.

IBM has been winning bigger contracts because it has more products and services to offer, largely driven by acquisitions and the rollout of new mainframe computers. Last year, it paid $6.4 billion for HashiCorp, a provider of infrastructure and security tools, and has had early success integrating those offerings into its portfolio.

Taken together, these factors could boost overall revenue by 6% and software revenue by 9% in 2026, Singh said. His call for revenue growth is double the consensus forecast on Wall Street and nearly double the call for growth in software revenue.

“We believe IBM will positively surprise the bears on its earnings through the year, driving upside to the stock,” Singh said.

That comes after a decent run in 2025, a year dominated by the conversation around artificial intelligence. Shares rose 35% last year, behind a 39% gain for AI heavyweight Nvidia but ahead of a 20% gain for the Nasdaq.

There already are signs 2026 will be a good year. Despite recent chatter, Oppenheimer’s checks show little to no customer attrition, even as IBM passes along a 6% price hike to customers renewing enterprise license agreements.

And then there is IBM’s consulting division, which has become a significant contributor to revenue. Singh and the Oppenheimer team see little evidence of a pullback on spending, although software is expected to continue to grow more rapidly

Software revenue is expected to achieve sustained, double-digit percentage growth as opposed to “low-single-digits” for IBM’s consulting arm, Oppenheimer said.

Barron’s wrote favorably on IBM for a different reason in December: the company’s burgeoning quantum-computing division. Big Blue was an early entrant in the space, and aims to release a fault-tolerant quantum supercomputer by the end of the decade. That would be an industry first.

Some numbers and data to review as many on these boards are asking questions re changes and prospects:

1. Enrollment decline or as they call "purge" of approx one million member:
   https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/medicare-advantage/unitedhealth-projects-1-million-member-drop-in-medicare-advantage-enrollment/

2. UHC's total membership by state:https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/unitedhealthcares-total-membership-by-state/

3. Areas of exit.
   https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/unitedhealth-exit-medicare-advantage-plans-16-us-counties-2025-10-01/

Speaking of HouseCalls in particular. It appears that cuts will be targeting mostly rural areas.

I wonder if this will cause bp to reconsider sending so many jobs there. I mean, that’s not exactly business friendly.

Do you think Intel could jump into the memory business with the new gubmint sponsored fabs and help out so the PC environment doesn't hit the skids?

Happy New Year. Kraft Heinz is a case study in what happens when cost discipline outpaces reinvestment. Years of cost-cutting and leadership churn weakened execution and blurred ownership, opening the door for faster, nimbler competitors.

For Nike, the lesson is simple: efficiency matters, but without sustained investment in product, talent, and clear accountability, competitive advantage slowly erodes. Stop the random reorgs.

This feels uncomfortably close to home. The WSJ’s “ How Kraft Heinz Lost Its Lock on Mac and Cheese—and American Shoppers” is worth reading.
--Kraft Heinz and the Mac-and-Cheese Reckoning

Kraft Heinz has all but owned the supermarket macaroni-and-cheese aisle for decades. So when the first boxes of an upscale brand called Goodles landed on store shelves in 2022, the company wasn’t especially worried.

A call went out in the Chicago headquarters to try it out. Employees bought a few boxes, cooked up the gooey meals in a corporate kitchen and dug in. The verdict: Goodles “Cheddy Mac” tasted good. Other flavors, the testers decided, needed work. The noodle texture was a bit iffy.

Kraft Heinz employees said the market-leading product was due for an upgrade, but with $1 billion worth of it selling every year, executives weren’t in a hurry. Deliberations stretched on for years: More protein? New flavors? More cheese? Goodles has now gobbled up 6% of the U.S. mac-and-cheese market, while Kraft Mac & Cheese is down to 39%, from 45% in 2022, according to data from market-research firm Circana.

When Kraft and Heinz, two of the biggest names in American food, merged in 2015, the combined company was supposed to breathe new life into old brands. Instead, years of cost cutting, underinvestment and corporate chaos left Kraft Heinz’s $26 billion food empire — home to bedrock brands like Heinz’s Tomato Ketchup, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Kool-Aid — vulnerable to both buzzier premium ones and cheaper supermarket knockoffs.

Kraft Heinz sales have dropped for eight straight quarters. In September, the company said it would split in two, undoing the 2015 deal. Tensions flared in the company’s upper ranks. Many employees were uncertain who was calling the shots and which company they would end up working for, sowing further chaos. On Jan. 1, the company replaced its chief executive, Carlos Abrams-Rivera, with veteran food-company executive Steve Cahillane.

Big food companies are under siege, buffeted in recent years by heightened scrutiny of processed foods, consumer anger over soaring grocery bills and the growing popularity of weight-loss dr-gs.

Kraft Heinz executives overseeing a sprawling portfolio of cheese, cold cuts, lunch kits and boxed dinners face a dilemma shared by other legacy food companies: Fiddle with flagship products and risk losing the loyal customers who made them category killers, or stick with old formulas that don’t interest younger shoppers.

Cahillane, the new CEO, said in mid-December that the industry “is clearly in a challenging moment,” and that Kraft Heinz “has to meet the moment.”

Bankable Brand

Kraft mac and cheese, first sold in 1937 for 19 cents a box, was the creation of Chicago cheese monger James L. Kraft, who got his start selling cheese from a horse-drawn wagon. Marketed as a meal for four, it caught on during World War II, eventually finding broad success as a quick and convenient dinner for families.

For decades, it was one of the most bankable brands in food. After Warren Buffett and Brazilian private-equity firm 3G teamed up to buy ketchup heavyweight Heinz in 2013, they orchestrated a merger with Kraft, creating the world’s fifth-largest food company.

Though Kraft mac and cheese still ruled store shelves, and the company’s Velveeta Shells & Cheese also was a top seller, consumer tastes were shifting away from such processed foods toward fresher, healthier fare. Competition was mounting, with General Mills in 2014 acquiring Annie’s, which made an organic mac and cheese.

In an earnings call after the merger, Kraft Heinz executives called mac and cheese a turnaround opportunity. The company revamped the recipe in 2016, replacing artificial dyes with colors derived from natural sources.

Kraft Heinz executives, many of them from 3G, used an aggressive cost-cutting measure called zero-based budgeting, under which all expenses had to be justified anew each year. The company closed plants and laid off thousands of workers, reducing annual spending by nearly $2 billion. It said greater efficiency would free up resources to reinvest in its brands.

Dividends to stockholders jumped to $3.6 billion in 2016, from $1.3 billion the year before. Kraft Heinz boasted the highest operating profit margin among food companies.

But former employees and Wall Street analysts said the company lost experienced leaders and marketing, research and sales prowess. “On multiple levels, they depleted the organization,” said Rob Moskow, an analyst at TD Cowen.

Kraft Heinz struggled to shift from cost-cutting to growth mode. Executives who excelled at trimming costs faltered when it came to building brands, according to former executives and other employees, often leaving junior employees to increase sales of struggling products on slim budgets. In 2019, poor sales and accounting errors prompted the company to write down the value of its assets by $17 billion.

The company brought in a new CEO, Miguel Patricio, who pledged to reinvest in areas like marketing. Less than a year into his tenure, the pandemic hit, and homebound consumers flocked to familiar brands like Kraft mac and cheese. The company expanded manufacturing capacity to pump out more blue-and-orange containers of its signature product and other key offerings.

Kraft Heinz sales climbed by 5% in 2020, boosted by booming online orders. “We have sold nearly 90 million pounds of mac and cheese alone this year, which is equal to the weight of 41 Statues of Liberty,” said Abrams-Rivera, then Kraft Heinz’s president of its U.S. business, during a presentation to investors.

Mac-and-Cheese Challenge

A year earlier, Paul Earle had been walking the aisles of Chicago grocery stores with a notebook and pen when he stopped in front of the familiar blue wall of Kraft boxes.

The veteran consumer-goods entrepreneur had been assistant brand manager for Kraft mac and cheese during a short stint at the food giant starting in the late 1990s. At the time, Earle recalled, he thought the product could be made more nutritious to satisfy Americans’ growing appetite for healthy fare.

Earle had left Kraft and later launched several companies, including ones selling whisk-y and shampoo. At the time of his Chicago store visit, he was hunting for a new project.

He purchased several brands of mac and cheese, brought them home and cooked them. His 10-year-old son, Earle said, spat out a healthier variety from a Kraft competitor. Kraft’s classic version still tasted good and brought back fond memories, Earle said, but it didn’t appear much healthier than it was when he worked there. “I knew there was a way to do it better,” he said.

Earle approached Jen Zeszut, who had run baby food startup Cerebelly. They agreed Kraft Heinz had left the door wide open for a mac-and-cheese challenge.

Goodles, led by Zeszut, pitched itself as a fun, healthier take on an old classic. The company infused its noodles with protein and nutrients from spinach, pumpkin and kale, and said its ingredients and flavors warrant a price that is more than twice what Kraft’s sells for.

While Kraft Heinz and General Mills tried to appeal to children with noodles shaped like SpongeBob and Disney characters, Goodles targeted a different group. Earle and Zeszut believed many young adults were secretly eating mac and cheese, and others would too if it could shed its dorm-food vibe.

The pair sought help from Wonder Woman. Several years earlier, Zeszut had discussed a different business venture with Gal Gadot, an Israeli movie star who has played the superheroine on screen. The actress had passed on the earlier investment, but signed on when Zeszut pitched Goodles.

Gadot became a Goodles ambassador, posting videos of herself cooking and tasting the product for her more than 100 million Instagram followers. She said mac and cheese was her favorite comfort food in childhood, but that established brands weren’t healthy enough for her own four children.

Goodles caught on with consumers. Zeszut said retailers earned a higher profit on Goodles, turning them into fans, too. “It’s a higher-income consumer, it’s a younger demographic,” she said. “It’s exactly who they are trying to lure back to the center store.”

Slow Reaction

Goodles hit store shelves during Kraft Heinz’s pandemic bo-m, when its sales grew for many consecutive quarters. Kraft Heinz executives weren’t overly concerned about the new competition at first, former employees said. Kraft mac and cheese was the category’s leading brand by far, selling more than a million boxes a day.

There were other problems demanding attention. Mac and cheese was losing shoppers to other quick foods such as ramen, and many Kraft mac and cheese buyers were turning to less expensive store brands like Walmart’s Great Value.

Market-share shift, 2022–2025 (through Nov. 2):

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese: –6 percentage points

Goodles: +5 percentage points

Velveeta Shells & Cheese, Private Label, Annie’s: remainder

In 2022, a Kraft Heinz team proposed grabbing shoppers’ attention with more promotions, new flavors and a high-protein variety. Employees put together a proposal for new mac-and-cheese products, including ones using premium cheeses like Gruyere, Gouda and Parmesan, and herbs and spices.

Under a “design to value” approach the company had adopted, those employees needed to find corresponding cost cuts. They experimented internally with reducing the amount of cheese, mac and cheese’s costliest component, checking the effect on taste, texture, mouthfeel, cheesiness and “cling.”

A year later, another team made similar recommendations to executives, presenting sales data and retailer intelligence about Gen Z and millennial shoppers, many of whom were springing for premium versions. Health-focused options and new flavors like truffle and cacio e pepe, they said, could help coax back younger shoppers.

Executives faced other big troubles. Frequent restructuring and churn among employees led to shifting priorities, stalled projects and frustration among retailers. Brands such as Oscar Mayer and Maxwell House posed even bigger challenges than macaroni and cheese.

Kraft Heinz sales started dropping in late 2023. Consumers were fed up with inflation and hunting for deals. Patricio stepped down as CEO, turning over the job to Abrams-Rivera.

Executives were frustrated with Kraft mac and cheese, which continued to lose market share. Unhappy retailers wanted a growth strategy from Kraft, their biggest mac-and-cheese supplier. Costco wanted healthier products. Kraft Heinz’s sales employees were frustrated too, believing their suggestions had fallen on deaf ears.

Abrams-Rivera acknowledged the mac-and-cheese challenges in an October 2024 earnings call. “We have quite a bit of work to do, and meaningful improvement will take some time,” he told investors.

Employees drew up plans for new flavors, box sizes and store promotions. Internally, they declared 2025 the “year of mac and cheese.”

The company launched limited-edition flavors such as pizza, garlic Parmesan and, recently, apple pie, and jalapeño and ranch as permanent additions.

As part of a major initiative to boost its brands, Kraft Heinz ran more mac-and-cheese taste tests with consumers. Some results were disappointing, and executives told employees to fix it.

Diana Frost, the company’s chief growth officer for North America, said one conclusion was that the product billed in the 1990s as “the cheesiest” could use more cheese.

The company dialed up the cheese. It also introduced a bigger box that it says can feed a family of five for $2, and it updated its packaging to note the product doesn’t contain artificial flavors, preservatives or dyes.

In the 40 weeks ended Nov. 2, Kraft mac and cheese sales declined 4% from the year-earlier period, according to Circana data shared by industry analysts.

Abrams-Rivera said in October that mac and cheese was partly to blame for a 4% sales decline in the largest division of Kraft Heinz’s North America grocery unit. More recently, the company said Kraft mac and cheese sales in the four weeks ended Nov. 16 were up 4% from the year-earlier period.

“We know our brands better than we’ve ever known them,” Frost said. “We are not happy with where results are, but we’re seeing progress.”

The company said it plans to spend more than $60 million to boost Kraft mac and cheese in 2026, including the rollout of a higher-protein, higher-fiber variety that it said will be more affordable than competitors’ versions. It is also working on a premium line featuring fancier cheeses and noodles and bolder flavors.

When Kraft Heinz announced its planned breakup in September, executives said the mac-and-cheese business would be part of the new company focused on sauces, spreads and seasonings, not the other one selling grocery staples such as sliced cheese and deli meat.

Wall Street analysts have questioned the plan for Kraft mac and cheese. Cahillane, the incoming CEO who is slated to lead the sauces business, has said he may reassess the plans for the brands, including mac and cheese.

This is what I think will happen

CEO won't be a nog enough name
Stock will hit 15 dollars
Struggle to sell any of the business
20% layoffs

Why does Target think dumping millions into AI at a time when the business is struggling with fundamental processes and retailing execution is going to help?

Slop in, slop out

People first, then process, THEN technology

What is going on with the first two at target? Nothing.

Hey Mr. Schulman, what you doing about the VZ stock price, clearly nothing much for now? More upside to come?? Or else is it business as usual, ouch!

In my opinion here is what is happening with Belk. I believe they have saw what is actually work for Macy’s and Belk is going to give it a shot. Macy’s is opening up smaller format stores that seem to be doing quite well for the brand, but at the same time they are closing their stores that are simply not profitable anymore and putting more focus into their “go-forward” stores. This strategy is all too similar to what Belk is doing. I do believe we will see several more store closures with Belk in the new year but honestly if this can help the company I believe it should be done. I mean it is working for Macy’s as they saw their first sales increase and positive outlook for the first time in several years.

The AI bubble isn't a bubble, it' actually a black hole. All the threats from SAP to our customers about how they wont get access to AI without RISE and Grow, all the consternation and turning customers into enemies, was all for nothing.

"Functional AI agents "will take about a decade," he said"

https://www.businessinsider.com/andrej-karpathy-ai-agents-timelines-openai-2025-10

This CIO has not only gutted the workforce, but also the systems. Poor culture thrives, and online articles are the focus versus getting the business to be effective through delivery and commitment. Get someone effective in Singapore to replace this jo**r.

About time. Business has been awful, strategy is non-existent, and products in the toilet. Sounds about right for someone to scoop up for $2B (overpriced)

How Trump's 'crony capitalism' has shaken up U.S. business https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/nx-s1-5639916/trump-crony-capitalism-free-market

Xerox and Lexmark Secure Majority of $385 Million of USGPO Contracts in 2025. (Google this)

Any rumors?

They haven't found a way to profit off of AI yet, given the costs. And it's a massive risk.
Remember blockchain, NFTs, and the Metaverse / VR? All giant fails.
Now, LLMs have obviously more practical / actual use cases. But they have plenty of flaws and it's not guaranteed those can all be addressed and it can be converted into a profitable, effective product.

Dell announced price increases for its commercial PCs, sparking worries about the potential impact on customer demand.
The price hikes were reportedly driven by a shortage of memory components, with some estimates suggesting increases of up to 30%. This development led to unease among investors about the affordability for business customers and its potential effect on sales.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/at-t-revenue-soars-to-1-44b-after-dei-programs-shut-down/ss-AA1SvZGM?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6942bd8ee25b43e2b58a99b761fae5c7&ei=41

Pls help us find more people

Anyone else get a weirdly confidential invite to a business update at 4:15?

Rumor has it that they are moving away from Tableau and Alteryx . Going to Databricks, PowerBI and Superset. Any truth to this?

Do you think Oracle will spin off business units to raise cash?

OMG. Ford is testing Energy storage system that Tesla implemented in 2012. Ford said that no one in the industry is doing this, so it's a lie. Well, I hope this will help Ford to make some money. Let's see if it's going to burn down any houses.