Latest news with #Minnetonka-based
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Minnesota still has 17 Fortune 500 companies; UnitedHealth leapfrogs Apple
Minnesota still has 17 Fortune 500 companies; UnitedHealth leapfrogs Apple originally appeared on Bring Me The News. Minnesota is still home to 17 Fortune 500 companies despite some chopping and changing in the latest rankings. Fortune revealed its 2025 list, which ranks U.S.-based companies based on their 2024 revenue, on Monday, with UnitedHealth Group once against Minnesota's most valuable company. The Minnetonka-based health insurance giant moved up one spot to 3rd overall, behind only Walmart and Amazon, and ahead of tech leviathan Apple. The question is whether UnitedHealth remains in the spot next year following a turbulent start to 2025 for the company, which has seen the aftermath of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the resignation of UHG CEO Andrew Witty, a plunge in its stock price as it suspended its 2025 guidance, and news of an alleged DOJ investigation into possible Medicare Advantage fraud. Minnesota's second-highest ranked company, Target, dropped four spots to 41 on the 2025 Fortune 500 list, but has also experienced a difficult first half of the year. Its decision to abandon diversity programs in the wake of President Donald Trump's return to office leading to boycotts and contributing to a reduction in sales, while the ongoing trade war launched by the president leading it to reduce its full-year guidance. U.S. Bancorp rose slightly in the Fortune 500 after increasing revenue in 2024. Best Buy dropped, while CHS fell by 18 places after seeing revenue fall by 13.9% over the course of the year. Minnesota maintained its 17 companies despite Polaris dropping out of the top 500, with a 19.3% revenue decline seeing it fall to 508. It was replaced by Solventum, the new healthcare company spun off from 3M in April, which debuted at 462nd with a revenue of $8.2 billion. The loss of the healthcare business saw 3M fall by 41 places, with its revenue declining from $32.7 billion to $24.5 billion. Here's the list of Minnesota Fortune 500 companies, with revenues in parentheses: 3: UnitedHealth Group ($400.2 billion; last year 4th) 41: Target ($106.5 billion; last year 37th) 105: U.S. Bancorp ($42.7 billion; last year 107th) 108: Best Buy ($41.5 billion; last year 100th) 118: CHS ($39.7 billion; last year 97th) 175: 3M ($32.7 billion; last year 134th) 216: General Mills ($19.9 billion; last year 203th) 230: Ameriprise Financial ($17.9 billion; last year 254th) 233: C.H. Robinson ($17.7 billion; last year 233rd) 262: Land O'Lakes ($16.2 billion; last year 245th) 274: Ecolab ($15.7 billion; last year 269th) 319: Xcel Energy ($13.4 billion; last year 302nd) 352 Hormel Foods ($11.9 billion; last year 343rd) 388: Thrivent Financial for Lutherans ($10.9 billion; last year 405th) 462: Solventum ($8.2 billion; new entry) 464: Securian Financial Group ($8.2 billion; last year 462nd) 492: Fastenal ($7.54 billion; last year 488th) This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Jun 4, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty suddenly resigns for 'personal reasons'
UnitedHealth Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty stepped down, effective immediately, "for personal reasons", the company said Tuesday. 'Leading the people of UnitedHealth Group has been a tremendous honor as they work every day to improve the health system, and they will continue to inspire me,' Witty said in a statement shared by UHG. Stephen Hemsley, current chairman of the company's Board of Directors and previously CEO from 2006 to 2017, has been appointed CEO. UnitedHealth Group also announced it has suspended its 2025 forecast as medical costs surge, with stock prices plunging to a four-year low Tuesday morning. 'We are grateful for Andrew's stewardship of UnitedHealth Group, especially during some of the most challenging times any company has ever faced,' Hemsley stated in an announcement. 'The Board and I have greatly valued his leadership and compassion as chief executive and as a director and wish him and his family the best." Hemsley joined UnitedHealth Group in 1997. The fourth-largest U.S company big revenue in 2024, Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth has experienced a turbulent year that saw the shock killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, and a cyberattack that affecting an estimated 190 million people and cost the company an estimated $3.1 billion.
Chicago Tribune
11-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
After a decade, beef farmers finally having a good year
BLACKDUCK, Minnesota — In Minnesota's north country, a former kindergarten teacher-turned-rancher carefully walks forward on muddy, thawing ground toward a knot of dark heifers. They stare with curious white faces. One high-ended cow trots away awkwardly, a classic signal that she'll soon be calving. 'That one shaking its tail? That one's probably calving, too,' said Rachel Gray, fourth-generation northern Minnesota farmer. She starts counting. 'One, two, three, there's probably four in here calving.' The remote woods north of Bemidji is beef country. And for the first time in a decade, the ranchers raising the livestock that get turned into hamburgers and steaks like their profit margins. 'Right now,' Gray said, walking through her barns on a mild February day, 'cattle producers are finally feeling like we can breathe.' Across America, high food prices — from eggs to Big Macs — dominate the conversation. But farmers will tell you high grocery store prices don't translate to their bank accounts. For more than a year, manufacturers of beef — slaughterhouses — have struggled. And economic trends are not necessarily getting better. Recently, Beef Magazine predicted a 'perfect storm' for producers this year, blaming drought, potential tariffs and a smaller national herd. In December, Minnetonka-based Cargill, one of the nation's Big 4 beef packers, laid off 8,000 workers or about 5% of its global employees, citing low commodity prices. The same week, another giant — Tyson Foods — announced the closure of a Kansas packing plant. But in cattle country, from the grasslands out West to the feedlots near Iowa where animals fatten up on cornmeal, the prices are finally better. In 2020, the price bottomed out close to $80 per 100 pounds. This week, live cattle were trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange around $200 per 100 pounds. 'People in the cattle business today are probably feeling a little bit better than they have the past couple of years,' said Jay Debertin, CEO of Inver Grove Heights-based CHS Inc., the nation's largest farmer cooperative, while speaking in January with Neel Kashkari at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. Eric Mousel, beef specialist with the University of Minnesota Extension in Grand Rapids, said the heady prices, counterintuitively, began with a drought in 2019 that swept across southern plains, decimating cattle herds. Today, the national herd is roughly 20% smaller than five years ago, Mousel said. Those still left in the game have reaped benefits of increased demand. 'The price is always really cyclical, based on how many calves are available,' Mousel said. 'Nobody was really paying attention to [the drop] because they were distracted by the pandemic, and then all of a sudden, there's not enough cattle to go around.' And the price relief couldn't come soon enough. Since 2002, Minnesota has lost roughly 25% of its beef cattle farms, dropping to around 11,700 farms in the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture census. The lineage of Gray's Beltrami County ranch starts with the lumber companies that clear-cut the region more than a century ago. Early farmers were 'cow, plow and a sow,' Gray said. More crops followed. So did a proper dairy. But getting milk down to the processors in central Minnesota grew costly. Around two decades ago, Gray's parents traded in the dairy for beef cattle. They put up miles of fence, turned fields into paddocks. Soon cattle grazed on Little Timber Farms. 'We had really good markets in 2014 and then everything crashed,' said Gray, who does custom calving and raises heifers that are shipped around the country. 'What we're seeing now is a little bit different. The markets seem to have held longer.' Life can be rugged in rural northern Minnesota. Gray's husband travels much of the year working in the mining industry. A son has joined her on the farm, but finding day care for her grandchildren can be a chore. Other than a trip to Texas earlier in February for Gray to accept a national award for environmental stewardship, vacations are few. But she knows cattle, and she loves her job. And February is go-time. For two weeks, in subzero temperatures, Gray lives in a bunkhouse in the barn. She layers up. On the off-chance there's no calving, she's catching a wink of sleep, maybe watching a little television, or checking her email. But usually, she's calving — at midnight or 4 a.m., the baby cows can come at any time. Gray's business draws interest from as far away as West Virginia. The cattle on her pastures arrived from the western Dakotas. Cattle country continues to change as conditions change. Some producers got out of the business during the down cycle. Now again, some producers are selling off herds, 'getting out while the getting is good,' Gray said. They also know that the good times might not last. Beef producers know not to trumpet their success. Farther south, crop farmers are struggling with low prices. Plus, there are factors they cannot control. Tariff talks in Washington could rattle trade for an industry that sends cattle hooves, tongue, organs overseas. But for the moment, Gray is focused close to home. Monday morning, she visited the butcher shop in Nevis. In the afternoon, she turned back to the calving. Another cow tottered around, confused. She was looking for her calf — but she hadn't even delivered it yet.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Ambiguous Loss' — A Team of Researchers is Learning From Indigenous Women Whose Children Were Adopted
Nancy Marie Spears The Imprint Hoping to offer a rare in-depth look into how placing children for adoption impacts the lives of Indigenous birth mothers, a group of researchers is continuing efforts to document the experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native women. Their study, believed to be the first of its kind, focuses on mental health and grief. The research is being carried out in stages and has already surfaced several themes, including 'ambiguous loss' — 'a stressful and traumatizing'' event that occurs when there is 'no verification, closure, rituals for support, or resolution.'' A small sample of Indigenous birth mothers informed the study's initial findings, originally published in a 2022 peer-reviewed article in the Family Process journal. Now, researchers intend to expand their work by surveying a larger number of Indigenous mothers and further examining the roles of culture and history. Participants are being recruited online, and through word of mouth and flyers being distributed throughout rural and urban Indigenous communities. Understanding the systemic challenges that lead to Indigenous women's children being placed for adoption might ultimately help inform future child welfare and adoption practices, said Sicangu Lakota elder Sandy White Hawk, lead investigator. Such insights might also lead to a better understanding of the specific support Native birth mothers need during and after an adoption, researchers said. 'It is my hope that it will motivate policy change on child removal — that child welfare will begin to focus on family healing rather than child removal,' White Hawk said. White Hawk's interest comes from a personal place — she was adopted at 18 months old. She is the founder and director of the Minnetonka-based First Nations Repatriation Institute, which helps Indigenous people impacted by adoption or foster care reconnect with their families and identities. For the study's initial phase, her team interviewed eight women from Minnesota, Washington, New Mexico, North Dakota, Alaska, Oregon and Wisconsin. Researchers acknowledged the small sample size but said the interviews yielded 'rich data'' nonetheless. Researcher Ashley Landers said previous studies involving the impact of foster care and adoption on birth mothers have mainly centered on the lives of white mothers. 'I don't think it's by chance that no Native birth mothers were included in birth parent research prior to this,' said Landers, an associate professor in the Department of Human Sciences at Ohio State University. 'Their part of the story has been largely omitted — Native birth fathers have also been omitted, and the larger Native family impact is oftentimes not part of adoption research.' History weighs heavily on the experiences of Indigenous birth mothers, making them 'distinct from other races as they have been disproportionately exposed to systemic practices of forced child removal,'' White Hawk's team posited in the 2022 published article. Culprits include U.S. policies that coerced parents into relinquishing their children to boarding schools, and the Indian Adoption Project — a federally funded effort in the mid-20th century to force the assimilation of Native American children into white families. Also harmful, they wrote, is the ongoing disproportionate removal of Native children from their parents through the country's child welfare systems. Taking this broader cultural context into account is crucial to understanding how adoption impacts the well-being of Native women, whose grief may be complicated by intergenerational trauma, researchers wrote. Two of the original study participants grew up in foster care, and one is a descendant of boarding school survivors. In all, the eight study participants were between the ages of 33 and 77 at the time of the survey. Each had experienced separation from a child through adoption or foster care between 1959 and 2010. The eight birth mothers lost a combined 10 babies under age 1 to adoption. Most of the children were placed in adoptive homes at birth. Only two children grew up in a Native adoptive home. A majority of those interviewed were 23 years old and younger when they gave birth. A Washington state birth mother was 13 years old and in foster care when she became pregnant. Her foster mother put her into a home for 'unwed mothers,' the woman reported. Some tried to hide their pregnancies out of a sense of shame or fear of repercussions. They lacked essential resources, such as income and family support. Some had struggled with homelessness. Many women said they 'felt expected' to give up their babies and reported being pressured by parents or partners, according to the published study. Others were afraid to keep their infants because they were in an abusive relationship. In terms of the events that contributed to a sense of ambiguous loss' among the women, several recalled being denied the opportunity to say goodbye. A lack of closure also occurred in cases in which mothers said they were told the adoption would be 'open,'' but those agreements were not upheld. Some reported being confused. It didn't occur to them that their time after giving birth would be the final moments they would see their babies. Researchers also queried the women about their mental health and well-being following the adoptions. Feelings expressed included guilt and unresolved grief that lasted years. A Minnesota woman shared how her experience led to a lifetime of self-imposed isolation. 'I don't have a lot of people close to me — from that fear of losing family and fear of losing my daughter, and I don't have the best relationship with my kids,' she said. Depression and anxiety were common, and some reported substance abuse challenges that were either pre-existing and exacerbated by the adoptions, or began afterwards. 'I wasn't a drug user or an alcohol user until that happened,' a birth mother from Oregon said. 'This was drinking to get so drunk that you fall asleep or getting high and just throwing yourself into really bad situations because you don't want to deal with what you've been through.' Not every experience reported was negative. Some mothers said the schools, social services agencies or churches facilitating their child's adoption were helpful. A woman from New Mexico said in her case, they 'made all the arrangements.' And a few birth mothers reported feeling 'relief' after the adoption, and that they had done 'the right thing.'' 'I was so young, and I was like, can I really be a parent…I think adoption might be the best route,'' one woman said. 'I think about it now, and how brave I was to do that.'' 'We forget about our birthmothers. They carry tremendous guilt and shame, many of them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when they were targeted by institutions and professionals disguised as helpers.' Five women voiced a common belief that 'culture as medicine' allowed them to assuage the pain of giving up their children and was a key component of their resilience. 'As an adult I got back into my culture and, fortunately, when I got back into my culture was when I started speaking candidly about my past,' the Minnesota mother said. 'So, I think it's helped.' Landers said the next phase of research will document additional instances of perceived coercion and examine how birth mothers navigated their lives over time. The goal is to recruit at least 20 participants for the new survey, but researchers have the capacity to include up to 50 women, she said. Opinions from birth mothers about how best to facilitate healing will also be solicited. 'Talking circles,' which are built around women with shared experiences, was one example mentioned in the 2022 article. Specifically, Landers said, researchers want to know how to help Indigenous birth mothers recover from ambiguous loss. This information will be presented to tribal leaders and the larger Native community, through national conferences and other forums. 'We forget about our birthmothers,' Landers said. 'They carry tremendous guilt and shame, many of them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when they were targeted by institutions and professionals disguised as helpers. 'I am not sure there is a way to right the wrongs that have been done to Indigenous birth mothers and their children,'' she continued, 'but acknowledging their suffering is a step in the right direction.' This story is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
After being bought for $200M in 2016, Minneapolis office tower sells for reported $6.25M
A downtown Minneapolis office tower that sold for $200 million in 2016 has sold again for a fraction of the price. Minnetonka-based private investment group Onward Investors have bought the 31-story Ameriprise Financial Center at 707 2nd Avenue South, with the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reporting it was sold for just $6.25 million. That represents a 97% reduction on the $200 million the building sold for in 2016 to BAM 701 LLC, which is affiliated with Florida-based real estate investment firm Morning Calm Management. Ameriprise had previously announced that the lease on its office space at the 960,000-square-foot building was expiring in 2025, and will consolidate its downtown offices into one building at 901 3rd Ave. S., which it owns and will be renamed Ameriprise Financial Center Headquarters. Even though a number of major companies are requiring workers to spend more time in the office, the COVID-19 pandemic still appears to have irrevocably altered the dynamic between in-office and remote work, with commercial building values cratering as businesses downsize their office floorspace. In the announcement of its purchase, Onward Investors says it is "exploring a variety of options for the property, including converting all or some of the building to uses other than office." "The purchase of the Ameriprise Financial Center is another demonstration of our desire to be an active participant in the recovery of downtown Minneapolis. We believe that now is a great time to be investing in the city's future and look forward to engaging a multitude of stakeholders in the coming months as we re-imagine this well-known asset in the Minneapolis skyline," said Jon Lanners, Partner at Onward Investors. The investment firm says Ameriprise Financial Center is "well-located within the Minneapolis skyway system, providing direct access to the Minneapolis Club, Capella Tower, SPS Tower, and Baker Center," as well as below-grade parking for over 300 vehicles.
