Market Watch

Boston-rooted Goodwin Procter expects to establish a full-service office in Philadelphia that could reach 50 lawyers, with firm leadership viewing the market as a perfect breeding ground for its core practices. The 1,800-lawyer Goodwin, which formally entered the Philadelphia market Monday with the addition of 14 Troutman Pepper Hamilton & Sanders partners, now has 16 locations. Philadelphia becomes its 8th office in the U.S. with the other half of the law firm’s sites situated in Europe and Asia. Chairman Rob Insolia said the firm does not have a geographic strategy but rather one focused on representing six industry verticals — private equity, real estate, technology, health care, life sciences and financial services. It keys on the convergence and disruption that technology causes in other industries, such as fintech and proptech. In the Philadelphia market, Insolia said he sees a dynamic market for life sciences, private equity and particularly for health care. Philadelphia is known for its eds and meds, and Goodwin has taken notice of it from afar. “We see health care as in this kind of a triangle of convergence of technology, private equity and life sciences,” Insolia said. “We see a lot of really vibrant industry players […]

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Photo by Jim Muchlinski New Gambler owner Shauna Bjorklund purchased the business in October from former owner Tom Pearcy. She enjoys the ownership responsibilities, her employees and the customers. MARSHALL — Shauna Bjorklund was interested in owning a business someday, and she found an opportunity sooner than expected. She purchased The Gambler Sports Bar & Grill in downtown Marshall from longtime owner Tom Pearcy. The sale took effect on Oct. 1. She decided to follow through on the opportunity based on her experience as an employee and manager at The Gambler over the past five years. “Tom and I started talking about it several years ago,” Bjorklund said. “He was interested in selling and offered me the chance to be the buyer. I decided to go ahead with it. I wanted the opportunity.” She graduated from Tracy High School in 2012, then earned a four-year marketing degree from Southwest Minnesota State University. She worked in marketing for the Heritage Pointe senior living facility before beginning to work at The Gambler. “Owning a business was something I’d thought about,” she said. “It was something I maybe wanted at some point in the future. I didn’t think it would happen this […]

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Retail Opportunity Investments Great West Life Assurance Co. Can bought a new stake in shares of Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. ( – ) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 255,129 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $3,510,000. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can owned approximately 0.20% of Retail Opportunity Investments as of its most recent SEC filing.

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What would have happened to Hulu and Netflix had they not taken the leap from content distribution to content creation? Had they clung to their existing business models rather than embracing original programming? Had they continued to rely on other companies to supply the products that drive customers to them? We don’t know for sure, but they may well have gone the way of Blockbuster. In any industry, if you’re only selling what is also sold elsewhere, you’re limited in your ability to differentiate, and that often means a race to the bottom. For grocers, the critical "original programming" opportunity lies in private brands. We believe strategy and execution in this area will determine who pulls ahead and who falls behind in the next five years. Why now? Private brand penetration in the U.S. has historically lagged behind Europe, but the gap is closing rapidly, with most of the market share shift of the last three years driven by more spending on private brands. The continuation of that transition over the next five years – from 18% market share to ~30% market share – represents over $100 billion in sales. The opportunity is considerable, and so is the work […]

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China ETFs are back in play amid a reopening economy, ‘distressed’ valuations and lower inflation than the west China is well underway on the long road to rolling back COVID-19 restrictions and although there are likely more twists to come, a reopening under new leadership spells a shift away from two years of economic slowdown and asset underperformance. The signal that years of lockdown was ending was given on 11 November, when President Xi Jinping and his new Politburo Standing Committee announced 20 guidelines to optimise pandemic measures, including prohibiting excessive lockdowns and relaxing quarantine and PCR testing requirements. Dr Xiaolin Chen (pictured) , head of international at KraneShares , told ETF Stream the new measures amount to a tangible “roadmap”, a sentiment boost for investors and consumers and “the biggest promotion of Chinese capital markets in three years”. “The new leadership is trying to assess domestic and international investors’ key concerns on China and they are beginning to communicate policy changes more proactively,” Chen continued. “Markets have so far reacted well to these developments in recent months.” Leading the charge in recent weeks have been Chinese tech equities, which Chen described as “the best reopening play”, given their […]

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Once the economy rebounds, this company’s business should take off like a rocket. Although Marvell ( MRVL -0.84%) might have the best long-term growth potential of all semiconductor companies, its fundamentals succumbed to the worsening economy in 2022, and the stock plunged 58%. Consequently, many investors in 2021 that pictured nothing but rapid growth ahead are now weeping at their losses. Considering that the economy is worsening and many economists and business leaders believe the global economy is on the brink of recession, should you give this stock a pass right now, or use the decline over the past year to buy shares of an excellent company while it’s down? Let’s take a look. Transforming into a data infrastructure company In 2016, a new management team began transforming Marvell from a maker of hard drives, Wi-Fi devices, and multimedia solutions to a pure play on data infrastructure. Today, the company focuses on storage, networking, computing, and security, the core technology needed for infrastructure powering the data economy. Marvell made the pivot to data infrastructure at the right time. The global economy survived COVID-19 mainly because people could remain connected during the pandemic through the infrastructure products that this company […]

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Jackdaw, one of the dozen projects named, will be a tied back to the Shearwater gas hub. A dozen key projects in the North Sea will deliver a “golden opportunity” for the UK supply chain in the coming years, according to new research. The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) and Global Underwater Hub (GUH) said the developments, including Ithaca Energy’s Cambo field, Shell’s Jackdaw and Equinor’s Rosebank, will require 47 new wells drilled and 200 miles of pipeline installed, as well as thousands of days in action for offshore rigs and vessels. Details of eight projects are public on the NSTA pathfinder portal, which also include BP’s Murlach , Ping Petroleum’s Avalon, Hibiscus’ Teal West, Ithaca’s Captain Phase 2 project and Harbour Energy’s Talbot, with the other four to be added “in due course”. Most of the offshore work for seven of the 12 projects is expected to get underway this year or in 2024, depending on net zero assessments being passed. Between them, the 12 are expected to deliver 8,400 “vessel days” and 3,900 “rig days”, according to the research. Ping Petroleum will use the Excalibur FPSO – formerly Hummingbird – to develop the Avalon field. NSTA and […]

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Analysts at KeyBanc raised their rating for ride-sharing app Lyft LYFT +2.08% to Overweight from Sector Weight. The shares rose. Lyft (ticker: LYFT) data improved over December, KeyBanc’s Justin Patterson wrote in a note on Tuesday. Combined with recent cost cutting , he sees a “meaningful opportunity” for the company to improve its earnings over the course of this year. Walmart WMT –0.08% is raising its hourly wages across its U.S. stores in a bid to sweeten the deal for front-line workers amid a nationwide labor shortage. Starting pay for Walmart (ticker: WMT) U.S. associates now ranges from $14 to $19 an hour, depending on location, a company spokesperson confirmed over email. Previously, the company’s starting wage was $12. That brings Walmart’s average hourly wages in the U.S. to more than $17.50 an hour.

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Paige Robinson, VP of Franchise Development at American Family Care , has worked in franchising for 15 years and in healthcare since 2015. getty While the Covid-19 pandemic affected countless industries in so many different ways, few were as intimately involved as healthcare. Now, nearly three years past the initial onset of the pandemic, it’s clear that disruption accelerated the growth of the urgent care sector. Crowded emergency rooms and staffing shortages in the past few years led people to head to urgent care clinics instead of hospitals. As a disclosure, my company American Family Care is one provider of urgent care solutions. Research from 2021 indicated that the number of people choosing urgent care for their medical needs was already up 58% since 2019 . As a consequence, this industry has emerged as a unique franchise opportunity for businesspeople to be involved in healthcare at the unit level without a traditional medical background, allowing them to make a meaningful impact in the communities they serve. In this article, I will break down both the growing popularity of urgent care solutions as well as a few factors that potential investors should seek out when considering urgent care franchising opportunities. […]

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(Image credit: Pedro Lima/Unsplash) The Church in the U.S. has seen a dramatic shift within the last ten years including a decline in attendance and the rise of "religious nones", but a recent study shows that nearly 75 percent of adults still have the desire to grow spiritually and more than 40 percent of people are "more open" to God. According to a new Barna study , three out of four adults say they want to grow spiritually. Additionally, the same proportion (77%) say they believe in "God" or "a higher power" and nearly half (44%) say they are "more open" to God today than before the pandemic. David Kinnaman, CEO of Barna, believes the research proves that there is "tremendous opportunity for faith leaders." "They are open to more that truly satisfies," he wrote. "The challenge facing the Church and parachurch ministries is whether they are ready and able to meet the spiritually open—where they are, as they are. Our data show the Church has real work to do to bridge the trust gap for people who are spiritual but not religious." Kinnaman explains that it is pivotal for the Church to reach the younger generation. "Overwhelmingly, Christian […]

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