2025

By Siddharth Cavale

Dec 26 (Reuters) – Activist investor Toms Capital Investment Management (TCIM) has made a significant investment in Target, the Financial Times reported on Friday, intensifying pressure on the struggling retailer after years of lagging performance compared with its rivals.

The size of the stake was not disclosed, and the report did not specify what demands the New York–based firm may bring forward.

Target’s shares rose 2.6% on the news. Its stock has lost more than 28% of its value this year after the Minneapolis-based chain posted three straight quarters of falling comparable sales. In August, the retailer appointed veteran company executive Michael Fiddelke to revive growth, as the business faces pressure from strained household budgets and tariff uncertainties.

“We maintain a regular dialogue with the investment community. Target’s top priority is getting back to growth,” Target said in a statement to Reuters on Friday. TCIM did not respond to requests for comment. 

Hedge fund TCIM is a relatively unknown entity in the retail industry but recently gained attention after taking a stake in Tylenol maker Kenvue before its sale to Kimberly-Clark last month for $40 billion. It has also pushed for changes at Pringles maker Kellanova and US Steel. 

For Fiddelke, the activist stake represents his first major test ahead of assuming the CEO role in February. His appointment has already sparked investor concerns, as he will continue reporting to current CEO Brian Cornell, who is set to become executive chairman of the board. That structure has drawn criticism, with the nonprofit shareholder activist group The Accountability Board tabling a shareholder proposal in October urging Target to appoint an independent chairman.

“To us, this (TCIM stake) signals that investors are hungry for change , and means our shareholder proposal likely has an even stronger chance of passing,” said Matt Prescott, president of the Accountability Board, which owns Target shares. 

To help assuage investor concerns and reinvigorate its business, Target laid out plans to spend an additional $1 billion in 2026 on new store openings and remodels. The company, which operates nearly 2,000 stores also cut 1,800 corporate roles as part of a broader restructuring.

The move by TCIM won’t be Target’s first encounter with an activist investor. In 2009, the company fought a high-profile proxy battle with Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, who sought board seats to push through a real-estate spin-off amid declining profits. 

Despite Ackman’s sizable stake, shareholders rejected his plan and backed Target’s incumbents. Pershing Square did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Target owns about 75% of its real estate, including the land, according to analysis by UBS analyst Michael Lasser ahead of Target’s results in November.

Neil Saunders, managing director at retail research firm GlobalData, said a similar real estate selloff in the current scenario would only deliver short-term gains. What Target needs, he argued, is a revamp of its products, stores, prices and selling methods, he said.

“This can only be achieved by focusing on retail fundamentals. Financial games and monetization do not take Target in the right direction and could end up being a distraction and annoyance for management,” he wrote in an email. 

(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York, Savyata Mishra and Sanskriti Shekhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Nick Zieminski)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks closed slightly lower on Friday in a quiet day of trading as investors returned from the Christmas holiday.

The S&P 500 index fell 2.11 points, less than 0.1%, to close at 6,929.94, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20.19 points, also less than 0.1%, to 48,710.97 and the Nasdaq composite fell 20.21 points, or 0.1%, to 23,593.10.

Institutional investors are largely closed out of their positions for the year, so trading was extremely light. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was roughly half what an average day.

With three trading days left in 2025, the S&P 500 has climbed nearly 18% this year, helped by the deregulatory policies of the Trump administration as well as investor optimism about the future of artificial intelligence.

Gold and silver prices continued to climb, with silver rising nearly 8% to $77.20 an ounce. Gold rose 1.1%. Both precious metals have risen this year as investors have looked for safe havens outside of stocks and bonds, and silver has also risen sharply due supply constraints. Miners posted solid gains Friday. Freeport-McMoRan climbed 2.2%.

Earlier surges in gold prices partly reflected worries during the U.S. government shutdown. Expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates further in the new year, weakening the dollar against other currencies, have also fueled buying of gold.

Shares of Target rose 3.1% after The Financial Times reported that an activist investor is taking a stake in the retail giant.

U.S. crude oil fell 2.8% and Brent crude fell 2.6%.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged down to 4.13%.

Markets in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia were closed. Most European markets remained closed Friday.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend.

Zelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday’s talks, and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90% ready.”

An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”

The Ukrainian side will also raise “territorial issues”, he said.

Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved,” but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.

“We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.

The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy’s comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.

“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.

Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.

On the ground, one person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.

Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.

“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.

Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple the Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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