Latest news with #Minnesota-based
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
beMarketing Joins Nexstar Network as a Strategic Partner to Deliver Growth-Driven Marketing Solutions to the Home Services Industry
PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., July 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- beMarketing is proud to announce that the company has joined Nexstar Network as a new Strategic Partner. Nexstar is a premier member-owned, member-led organization that supports independent plumbing, HVAC, and electrical contractors throughout North America and Australia. This collaboration will provide Nexstar members with exclusive access to beMarketing's expertise in driving customer acquisition, elevating brand presence, and maximizing both online and offline marketing performance. Through this partnership, beMarketing will deliver tailored marketing strategies for the home services industry, helping Nexstar members: Generate More Qualified Leads Attract and Retain High-Value Customers Strengthen Their Brand in Local Markets Engage Audiences Across All Channels Track and Optimize Campaign Performance "beMarketing is thrilled to be a Nexstar Strategic Partner and provide their members with growth-focused marketing solutions," said Brandon Rost, CEO of beMarketing. "Home service businesses face unique challenges in today's digital and traditional landscapes. Our mission is to help them overcome those challenges and thrive with customized strategies that deliver measurable results." Nexstar members will benefit from beMarketing's deep industry experience and a full suite of capabilities, including: Digital Marketing Strategy & Execution Media Planning & Buying (Online + Traditional) Creative Services & Brand Development CRM & Marketing Automation Integration Website Design Optimized for Lead Conversion Local SEO & Paid Media Campaigns Reputation Management & Customer Retention Tools "beMarketing's client-first approach, combined with its intimate understanding of the home services sector, ensures the strategic campaigns they create will align with the goals of our growth-minded members. Marketing plays a significant role in the success of a PHCE residential services business, and we are excited to have the beMarketing team on board contributing and adding value in support of our membership," explained Bruce Stephan, Coaching Manager for Marketing and Sales, Nexstar Network. About beMarketing beMarketing is a full-service marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes achieve their growth objectives. We are a team passionate about creativity and collaboration, committed to building strong partnerships with our clients. With a team of experienced professionals, beMarketing offers a comprehensive suite of marketing services. Our portfolio showcases our expertise in delivering impactful digital strategies, and we are proud to deliver results-driven campaigns that drive business growth. beMarketing is committed to delivering innovative solutions, exceptional service, and measurable results for its clients. To learn how beMarketing can help your business grow, visit About Nexstar Network® Minnesota-based Nexstar Network was founded as a member-owned company in 1992 to help independent owners of PCHE home service businesses discover their success through education and sharing. With more than 1,000 members and 100 employees, Nexstar Network offers professional coaching, expert training, and valuable resources to help the world's best tradespeople become the world's best businesspeople. Learn more at and join the Nexstar professional community on LinkedIn. Media Contact:Julie Huffjhuff@ 261-1149 View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE beMarketing Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Malaysian Reserve
6 hours ago
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
beMarketing Joins Nexstar Network as a Strategic Partner to Deliver Growth-Driven Marketing Solutions to the Home Services Industry
PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., July 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — beMarketing is proud to announce that the company has joined Nexstar Network as a new Strategic Partner. Nexstar is a premier member-owned, member-led organization that supports independent plumbing, HVAC, and electrical contractors throughout North America and Australia. This collaboration will provide Nexstar members with exclusive access to beMarketing's expertise in driving customer acquisition, elevating brand presence, and maximizing both online and offline marketing performance. Through this partnership, beMarketing will deliver tailored marketing strategies for the home services industry, helping Nexstar members: Generate More Qualified Leads Attract and Retain High-Value Customers Strengthen Their Brand in Local Markets Engage Audiences Across All Channels Track and Optimize Campaign Performance 'beMarketing is thrilled to be a Nexstar Strategic Partner and provide their members with growth-focused marketing solutions,' said Brandon Rost, CEO of beMarketing. 'Home service businesses face unique challenges in today's digital and traditional landscapes. Our mission is to help them overcome those challenges and thrive with customized strategies that deliver measurable results.' Nexstar members will benefit from beMarketing's deep industry experience and a full suite of capabilities, including: Digital Marketing Strategy & Execution Media Planning & Buying (Online + Traditional) Creative Services & Brand Development CRM & Marketing Automation Integration Website Design Optimized for Lead Conversion Local SEO & Paid Media Campaigns Reputation Management & Customer Retention Tools 'beMarketing's client-first approach, combined with its intimate understanding of the home services sector, ensures the strategic campaigns they create will align with the goals of our growth-minded members. Marketing plays a significant role in the success of a PHCE residential services business, and we are excited to have the beMarketing team on board contributing and adding value in support of our membership,' explained Bruce Stephan, Coaching Manager for Marketing and Sales, Nexstar Network. About beMarketing beMarketing is a full-service marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes achieve their growth objectives. We are a team passionate about creativity and collaboration, committed to building strong partnerships with our clients. With a team of experienced professionals, beMarketing offers a comprehensive suite of marketing services. Our portfolio showcases our expertise in delivering impactful digital strategies, and we are proud to deliver results-driven campaigns that drive business growth. beMarketing is committed to delivering innovative solutions, exceptional service, and measurable results for its clients. To learn how beMarketing can help your business grow, visit About Nexstar Network® Minnesota-based Nexstar Network was founded as a member-owned company in 1992 to help independent owners of PCHE home service businesses discover their success through education and sharing. With more than 1,000 members and 100 employees, Nexstar Network offers professional coaching, expert training, and valuable resources to help the world's best tradespeople become the world's best businesspeople. Learn more at and join the Nexstar professional community on LinkedIn. Media Contact:Julie Huffjhuff@ 261-1149
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
UnitedHealth expects lower profits in 2025 amid medical cost spike
This story was originally published on Healthcare Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Healthcare Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: UnitedHealth has set new financial guidance for 2025 well below what analysts expected, after pulling its outlook earlier this year amid spiking medical expenses. The beleaguered healthcare behemoth's second-quarter results released Tuesday also underperformed earnings forecasts. Executives said they significantly underestimated accelerating medical trend when they priced their plans for this year, especially in Medicare Advantage. In addition, new CEO Stephen Hemsley outlined how UnitedHealth plans to have a more transparent relationship with federal regulators and the public at a time of intense scrutiny of its business practices. UnitedHealth's stock fell 5% in Tuesday morning trading following the results Dive Insight: UnitedHealth announced the abrupt exit of its CEO Andrew Witty in May, along with fully withdrawing its 2025 outlook. As such, the second quarter is the company's first under Hemsley, the chairman of UnitedHealth's board and its CEO from 2006 to 2017. Hemsley has his work cut out for him in turning UnitedHealth around. The company, once a darling of Wall Street, has seen its stock tumble amid dogged medical cost increases, fraying consumer trust, and criminal and civil investigations by the Department of Justice that UnitedHealth acknowledged for the first time scant days ago. The Minnesota-based company — which includes the largest private payer in the country, a major pharmacy benefit manager and a large physician network — is reportedly facing scrutiny for inflating the sicknesses of its MA members and delaying and denying care in order to profit. $UNH price at close, January 2025 to date During a call with investors Tuesday morning, Hemsley said that UnitedHealth plans to refocus on business fundamentals to right the ship, while committing to increased public transparency 'At this moment I believe it's important to convey the tone we're setting at this enterprise. More than anything it is a tone of change and reform,' Hemsley said. UnitedHealth is making a 'real cultural shift' in its relationship with regulators and the public, including assessing its policies and procedures in a report it plans to release in the fourth quarter, according to the CEO. 'We've made pricing and operational mistakes as well as others. They are getting the needed intention. Our critical processes, including risk status, care management, pharmaceutical services and others are being reviewed by independent experts,' Hemsley said. 'While we believe in our oversight and the integrity of these processes, wherever they are determined to be in variance with prescribed practices they'll be promptly remediated.' Still, comments about UnitedHealth's fresh start failed to nullify investor displeasure with the company's new 2025 outlook. UnitedHealth now projects $16 in adjusted earnings per share on between $445.5 billion and $448 billion in revenue, short of analysts' expectations. In comparison, the company brought in upwards of $27 in adjusted earnings per share last year on $400.3 billion in revenue. UnitedHealth's posturing 'feels conservative,' Jefferies analyst David Windley wrote in a note on the results. Despite UnitedHealth's particular regulatory and PR crises, the main challenge pressuring its earnings isn't isolated to the company. Insurers are facing a surge in medical spending as their members utilize more healthcare — and that care tends to be pricier — than in past years, especially in government programs. Elevance, Centene and Molina all called out Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act as areas of particularly high cost in the second quarter. UnitedHealth — which provides health insurance to 50 million people — was no exception. 'Our pricing assumptions were well short of actual medical costs,' Tim Noel, the CEO of UnitedHealth's insurance division UnitedHealthcare, said during the call. Medicaid and the ACA contributed to the pressure. Medicaid spending rose sharply, particularly in behavioral healthcare, while states' payment rates weren't high enough to compensate. As for ACA plans, a market-wide increase in members' health needs drove higher-than-expected spend, particularly in outpatient services, executives said. UnitedHealthcare is somewhat unique, however, in that the insurer is also seeing spending spike in MA plans. Other payers have so far said that MA costs are elevated but within expectations. (Humana, the second-largest MA payer after UnitedHealthcare, has yet to report second quarter results.) Medicare is the biggest single driver of lower earnings expectations for 2025, Noel said. MA medical trend skyrocketed beyond what UnitedHealth had predicted coming into the year, a challenge that's been compounded by other plans exiting markets across the sector and providers providing more services. Increasing care activity is mostly concentrated in physician and outpatient utilization — but high-cost inpatient utilization is also growing, especially emergency room and observation visits, according to the UnitedHealthcare CEO. 'In short, most encounters are intensifying in services and costing more,' Noel said. Coming into 2025, the insurer had expected MA medical cost trend of just over 5%. Now, UnitedHealthcare expects trend to run around 7.5% this year, according to Noel. And trend could further accelerate to almost 10% in 2026, UnitedHealthcare predicts. As a result, the payer plans to raise premiums, cut benefits and exit plans where it has less control over spending to 'intensely focus' on recovering profits, the executive said. 'Considering the continued cost trends and funding pressures and the need to support margin recovery, we have made significant adjustments to benefits. Additionally and unfortunately given these pressures, we have made the difficult decision to exit plans that currently serve over 600,000 members, primarily in less managed products,' Noel said. UnitedHealthcare could also exit select ACA markets next year if it can't secure high enough rates, especially given expected membership turmoil after more generous subsidies for ACA coverage expire, Noel said. Spending challenges drove UnitedHealthcare's quarterly operating profit down to $2.1 billion, compared to $4 billion same time last year. Medicare funding issues also hit UnitedHealth's health services division, Optum, in the second quarter. Optum's revenue stayed relatively flat year over year, but operating profit fell 21% year over year to $3.1 billion. The biggest issues were in care delivery unit OptumHealth, which currently oversees 5 million patients in fully accountable payment arrangements. For 2025, OptumHealth onboarded more complex members that need a higher level of care — some of which come with negative margins in the double digits, Patrick Conway, the CEO of Optum, said on the call. The division has also failed to transition smoothly to a new risk model put in place by the Biden administration, while reimbursement from its insurer partners hasn't covered accelerating medical trend. OptumHealth plans to increase rates to reflect higher member acuity, and stop covering roughly 200,000 patients in value-based arrangements where it has less direct control over spending to improve margins, according to Conway. 'We expect to keep narrowing our exposure beyond 2026,' Conway said. Overall, UnitedHealth reported $111.6 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 13% year over year. Profit of $3.4 billion was down 19% year over year. The company said it should return to earnings growth next year. Recommended Reading UnitedHealth confirms it's under investigation by DOJ Sign in to access your portfolio
Malaysian Reserve
a day ago
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Humane World for Animals delivers over 195,000 signatures to Target demanding action on animal welfare commitments
Advocates gathered outside of Target headquarters to urge the retailer to follow through on decade-long promises to reduce animal suffering MINNEAPOLIS, July 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Today Humane World for Animals, formerly called the Humane Society of the United States, delivered more than 195,000 signatures in person to Target's downtown Minneapolis headquarters, calling on the company to fulfill its long-overdue commitments to eliminate the extreme confinement of pigs and hens in its supply chain. In 2012, Target pledged to stop sourcing pork from farms that confine pregnant pigs in gestation crates so small they are unable to even turn around. Then in 2016, the company committed to selling only cage-free eggs by 2025. Yet, despite making these pledges more than a decade ago, Target has failed to deliver on either promise. During the petition event, speakers, advocates and supporters from Humane World for Animals delivered 15 large boxes of signed petitions alongside life-sized battery cages stuffed with replica chickens. Dozens of members of the public engaged with the advocates and expressed support for Target's transition to selling eggs and pork sourced from chickens and pigs who are not forced to suffer in extreme confinement. Meanwhile, a mobile billboard circled downtown Minneapolis urging the public to visit the campaign website, 'We delivered a critical message to Target backed by more than 195,000 consumers: extreme confinement of farm animals is not only cruel but completely unnecessary,' said Kent Stein, corporate policy specialist at Humane World for Animals and one of the event's speakers. 'We urge Target to listen to its customers and follow through on long overdue promises to eliminate animal cruelty in its supply chain. We know they can do better just like all the large corporations who have already made, kept and implemented their commitments to animal welfare.' On a typical egg factory farm, hens are crammed into barren wire cages where they endure a lifetime of captivity in a space smaller than a single letter-sized sheet of paper. Pregnant pigs confined in horrific gestation crates suffer from muscle and bone deterioration as well as severe distress, gnawing on the bars of their small cages until their mouths bleed. 'More than a decade has passed since Target made these commitments, yet millions of animals in its supply chain are still suffering in tiny cages,' said Aaron Zellhoefer, Minnesota state director at Humane World for Animals and a featured speaker at the event. 'While many high-profile companies have already made good on their commitments—including Minnesota-based General Mills—Target continues to fall behind. Stop stalling. The time for action is now.' Fourteen states have already banned one or both of forms of extreme confinement for egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs, and hundreds of major companies—including Amazon, McDonald's, Costco, Unilever and Nestlé—have adopted similar policies within their U.S. operations. To learn more and take action visit Download Photos/Videos of today's event Download Photos/Videos of animals in gestation crates and battery cages About Humane World for Animals Together, we tackle the root causes of animal cruelty and suffering to create permanent change. With millions of supporters and work happening in over 50 countries, Humane World for Animals—formerly called the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International—addresses the most deeply entrenched forms of animal cruelty and suffering. As the leading voice in the animal protection space, we work to end the cruelest practices, care for animals in crisis and build a stronger animal protection movement. Driving toward the greatest global impact, we aim to achieve the vision behind our name: a more humane world.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What to Expect From General Mills' Q1 2026 Earnings Report
Minneapolis, Minnesota-based General Mills, Inc. (GIS) manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. With a market cap of $27.7 billion, the company operates through four segments: North America Retail, International, Pet, and North America Foodservice. GIS is slated to release its Q1 earnings on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Ahead of the event, analysts expect GIS to report a profit of $0.81 per share, down 24.3% from $1.07 per share reported in the year-ago quarter. It has exceeded analysts' earnings estimates in each of the past four quarters, which is impressive. More News from Barchart Tesla Just Signed a Chip Supply Deal with Samsung. What Does That Mean for TSLA Stock? Dear Microsoft Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for Aug. 1 Is Lucid Motors Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold for July 2025? Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! For the current year, analysts expect GIS to report EPS of $3.66, down 13.1% from $4.21 in fiscal 2024. However, analysts expect its earnings to surge 4.4% year-over-year to $3.82 per share in fiscal 2026. Over the past year, GIS shares declined 24.8%, underperforming the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 17.1% gains and the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLP) 2.8% returns over the same time frame. On Jun. 26, GS stock increased by more than 1% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the stock to "Outperform" from "Sector perform" with a price target of $63. The consensus opinion on GIS stock is skeptical, with an overall 'Hold' rating. Out of the 20 analysts covering the stock, opinions include four 'Strong Buys,' one 'Moderate Buy,' 13 'Holds,' and two 'Strong Sells.' The mean price target of $55.15 indicates a 10.6% upside potential from current price levels. On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Sign in to access your portfolio
