Macy’s on Wednesday beat Wall Street’s quarterly sales and profit expectations as its namesake brand showed signs of progress, yet still gave a cautious outlook for the year ahead.
For the fiscal year, the company – which includes its namesake chain, higher-end department store Bloomingdale’s and beauty retailer Bluemercury – said it expects sales of between $21.4 billion and $21.65 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $1.90 to $2.10.
Both of those would represent a drop from this past fiscal year, when revenue totaled $21.8 billion and adjusted earnings per share were $2.15. Macy’s sales outlook roughly matched or exceeded analysts’ expectations of $21.42 billion, but its adjusted earnings guidance came in shy of Wall Street’s expectations of $2.17 per share for the year, according to LSEG.
Macy’s said it expects comparable sales, an industry metric that takes out short-term factors like store openings and closures, to range from a 0.5% decline to a 0.5% increase.
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In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tony Spring said Macy’s results show that its strategy is working. All three of its brands grew in the fiscal year and holiday quarter. It marked the fourth consecutive quarter of Macy’s beating Wall Street’s sales guidance. And for the first time in three years, Macy’s returned to positive growth, with comparable sales increasing 1.5% for the full year.
Even in recent weeks, he said Macy’s shoppers have shown “continued resiliency” as they spend on fresh clothing and gravitate to newer brands and trendier items.
Yet, he said Macy’s and other retailers have new unknowns that make the year ahead harder to predict and caused the company to take a “prudent” approach with its outlook.
“Given the environment that we operate in, it makes sense for us to not put a hockey stick out there and suggest that we have visibility into what the remainder of the year is going to reveal itself to be,” he said.
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“Where will gas prices be the remainder of the year? How long will the conflict go on in the Middle East? Will the tariffs be refunded? Will other tariffs be enhanced or raised? Will the resilient consumer continue?” he said. “We’re not economists. The team is really focused on controlling what they can control.”
The company’s full-year guidance takes into account “macroeconomic and geopolitical factors that could influence discretionary spend,” according to a news release. It said the outlook anticipates a larger hit from tariffs in the first half of the year than the second half, with the first quarter “having the most meaningful impact.” It also includes the impact of investments that the company is making in revamping its stores, as well as the effect of fewer store closures.
Spring said the company has continued to include the pre-Supreme Court ruling level of tariffs in its full-year forecast. He said it expects Macy’s tariff bill to ease later this year because it will be lapping the year-ago impact of tariffs.
If the company gets a refund or if tariffs wind up at a lower level, “that will be a benefit” for Macy’s, he said.
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Here’s how the department store operator performed during its fiscal fourth quarter, compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $1.67 adjusted vs.$1.53 expected
Revenue: $7.64 billion vs. $7.62 billion expected
Shares of Macy’s rose about 6% in premarket trading.
Macy’s net income for the three-month period that ended Jan. 31 rose to $507 million, or $1.84 per share, compared with $342 million, or $1.21 per share, in the year-ago period. Adjusting for one-time items including impairment and restructuring costs, the retailer reported earnings per share of $1.67.
Macy’s is about two years into a three-year effort to strengthen its struggling namesake brand, lean into its better-performing and more luxury-focused chains Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury and speed along the business’ supply chain and tech operations. That turnaround strategy has been led by Spring, who stepped into the company’s top role about two years ago.
So far, Spring said Macy’s has closed a little over 80 of its namesake stores and is still planning to hit the approximately 150 closures. He declined to share how many new Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury stores the company may open and where those will be located, but said he sees a lot of opportunity to reach new markets.
Across the company, comparable sales for the fourth quarter grew 1.8%including owned and licensed merchandise and its third-party marketplace.
In the fourth quarter, comparable sales for the Macy’s namesake banner grew 0.4%. When including only the stores that Macy’s plans to keep open, comparable sales increased 0.6%. Comparable sales for Bloomingdale’s jumped 9.9%, and for Bluemercury grew 1.3%.
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Bloomingdale’s posted its best holiday season ever, which Spring attributed to the retailer’s assortment, strong store and digital experience and ability to draw shoppers across generations.
During the holiday season, Spring said Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury drew in customers and less frequent, seasonal shoppers who sprang for pricier brands and items, including fragrances, sunglasses and shoes, as they looked for gifts.
And even since the gift-giving season has passed, Macy’s has not seen a change with consumer spending, Spring said.
“The middle- and upper-end consumer, which is the majority of our business, is resilient,” he said. “They are buying new things, fashionable things, wardrobe changes, [they’re] not as interested in essentials at this moment in time, and then, obviously the lower-income tiers are more choiceful.”
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He said the department store operator’s approach of carrying products across a wide range of prices has been “one of the best antidotes” to an unpredictable economic backdrop.
Led by Spring, the company has tried to address criticisms that its Macy’s department stores carried stale merchandise, relied on too thin of staffing and had disorganized shelves and displays that had driven shoppers to competitors.
While shuttering some of its namesake stores, the company pledged to invest in the approximately 350 Macy’s stores that will remain open. It has stepped up staffing, added new brands and sharpened its visual displays at a growing number of locations.
The company began with a test at 50 stores and has now scaled up to more Macy’s namesake locations. At the 125 locations where it has increased investment, sales outperformed the rest of the Macy’s chain, with comparable sales growth of 0.9%.
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Spring told CNBC the company has now added 75 more stores, bringing the total to 200 “reimagined” stores. That represents about 60% of Macy’s namesake locations that it plans to keep open, he said.
Some of the biggest changes Macy’s has made at namesake stores include hiring more employees who can help customers and allowing local leadership the flexibility to put those employees in parts of the store where they can make the biggest difference, Spring said.
“It always comes down to the quality of the assortment and the quality of the people and the quality of the experience. And I think we’ve tried to address all three,” he said. “We’ve added brands. We’ve edited brands. We’ve made sure the shopping environment is more pleasant, less dense, [with] better storytelling, and we’ve added people to the stores.”
He said the stronger store business has lifted digital sales, which account for one-third of the brand’s overall sales.
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Along with those changes, more of Macy’s namesake stores now carry newer, trendier and often more expensive brands including Theory, Reiss, Good American and Rodd & Gunn. Spring said those have been well-received and Macy’s plans to add them to more locations.
Shares of Macy’s closed on Tuesday at $16.92, bringing the company’s market value to $4.5 billion. As of Tuesday’s close, the company’s stock is up nearly 25% over the past year, outpacing the roughly 20% gains of the S&P 500 during the same period. Shares of Macy’s have fallen about 23% year to date, however.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has abandoned its ambition to become a fully electric brand by 2030, marking a significant shift in strategy as the global transition to electric vehicles shows signs of slowing at the very top end of the automotive market.
The decision, confirmed by chief executive Chris Brownridge, reverses a high-profile commitment made in 2022 under his predecessor Torsten Müller-Ötvös, who had pledged that Rolls-Royce would cease production of its iconic V12 combustion engines by the end of the decade.
At the time, the company positioned its first electric model, the Spectre, as the beginning of a rapid transition, targeting 20 per cent of annual sales in the near term and as much as 70 per cent by 2028. The long-term ambition was clear: a complete shift away from internal combustion engines within eight years.
However, Brownridge has now acknowledged that the assumptions underpinning that strategy have changed materially. He pointed to a combination of softened customer appetite for fully electric luxury vehicles and a broader easing of regulatory pressure in key markets.
“For every client that loves an electric vehicle there is one who does not,” he said, underlining the continued demand among Rolls-Royce’s ultra-high-net-worth clientele for traditional powertrains. “Some clients do want an electric vehicle, we build what is ordered.”
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The recalibration reflects a wider industry trend, particularly among premium and luxury manufacturers, where the pace of electrification is proving more uneven than previously anticipated. While mass-market brands continue to push towards electrification, high-end marques are increasingly adopting a more flexible, demand-led approach.
Brownridge was careful not to outline a revised electrification timeline, declining to specify new targets for zero-emission sales or confirm how many additional electric models Rolls-Royce plans to introduce. Nor did he disclose current sales performance for the Spectre, though its market reception has been closely watched as a bellwether for electric adoption in the luxury segment.
Instead, the emphasis appears to be shifting towards optionality rather than outright transition. The V12 engine, long synonymous with Rolls-Royce’s heritage and brand identity, will remain part of the company’s offering for the foreseeable future.
“The V12 is part of our history,” Brownridge said, suggesting that legacy and customer preference are now being given equal weight alongside environmental considerations.
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The move comes amid a broader reassessment of electric vehicle strategies across the luxury automotive sector. Just a day earlier, Bentley confirmed that its own transition to an all-electric lineup would be delayed, with its first zero-emission model now expected at least two years later than originally planned.
Together, the announcements highlight a growing divergence between policy ambition and market reality. While governments continue to push for decarbonisation, including through bans on new petrol and diesel vehicles in the 2030s, manufacturers are increasingly signalling that consumer demand, particularly at the premium end, may not align neatly with those timelines.
Rolls-Royce’s original 2030 commitment was made at a time of strong political momentum behind electrification and rising optimism about battery technology, infrastructure rollout and customer adoption. Since then, a more complex picture has emerged, with concerns around charging infrastructure, range anxiety and the experiential differences between electric and combustion engines influencing buyer behaviour.
In the ultra-luxury segment, where emotional connection and heritage play a significant role in purchasing decisions, those factors appear to be even more pronounced.
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Despite stepping back from a fixed deadline, Rolls-Royce is not abandoning electrification altogether. The Spectre remains a central part of its future portfolio, and the company is expected to continue investing in electric technology. However, the transition will now be paced according to customer demand rather than dictated by a hard deadline.
The shift underscores a broader reality facing the automotive industry: the road to electrification is unlikely to be linear. For Rolls-Royce, the strategy now appears to be one of balance, preserving its legacy while adapting to a changing, but still uncertain, future.
Paul Jones
Harvard alumni and former New York Times journalist. Editor of Business Matters for over 15 years, the UKs largest business magazine. I am also head of Capital Business Media’s automotive division working for clients such as Red Bull Racing, Honda, Aston Martin and Infiniti.
It has been appointed sold agent for the remaining stake in the park owned by Cardiff Gate International Business Park Ltd
12:01, 18 Mar 2026Updated 12:01, 18 Mar 2026
Property advisory firm JLL has been appointed as the sole agent for the letting and sale of the remaining Cardiff Gate International Business Park owned assets of Cardiff Gate Business Park Ltd.
The park was originally 100% owned and developed by Cardiff Gate Business Park Ltd and over the last 30 years various parts of the park have been developed and sold.
The developer currently owns around 25% of the park, that includes 55,000 sq ft office space.
The portfolio of Cardiff Gate Business Park Ltd includes a mix of let and vacant office buildings as well as approximately 20 acres of prime development land. The first investment being marketed by JLL on behalf of Cardiff Gate Business Park Ltd is 20,325 sq building let to Regus with an asking price of £3m.
Last year JLL acted for SSE who owned Ty Meridian on the park, in a letting deal creating a new HQ for Creditsafe. The investment was subsequently sold. It also disposed of the investment in the Cardiff Audi site on behalf of a private investor.
The business park benefits from being adjacent to the established Cardiff Gate Retail Park and the Pontprennau residential estate with a new 2,500 unit residential development proposed to the west of the park.
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Rhydian Morris of the Cardiff office of JLL, said “Our team has a strong track record at Cardiff Gate, which includes the investment sale of the 35,000 sq ft Cardiff Audi dealership as well as the 50,000 sq ft Creditsafe occupier letting and subsequent investment sale of Ty Meridian.
“We are delighted to be the sole adviser to Cardiff Gate Business Park Ltd and given the quality and variety of available buildings and development sites, we are confident they will generate strong interest from the market.”
Cupertino, Calif. — Apple’s iPhone 17e, launched March 2, 2026, and available since March 11, delivers full Apple Intelligence support at an accessible $599 starting price for the 256GB model. Powered by the same A19 chip as the standard iPhone 17, the entry-level device features an upgraded 16-core Neural Engine with Neural Accelerators in each GPU core, enabling fast on-device AI processing for privacy-focused tasks.
iPhone 17e
This marks a significant step in democratizing Apple’s AI ecosystem, previously limited to higher-end models. With the iPhone 17e, users gain access to advanced generative tools, smarter communication aids and productivity boosts integrated across iOS 26. Here are five key AI features that highlight why the iPhone 17e stands out as a value-packed entry into Apple’s intelligent smartphone lineup.
Enhanced Writing Tools and Text Generation Apple Intelligence powers systemwide writing assistance in apps like Mail, Notes and Messages. Users can rewrite, proofread or summarize text with natural, context-aware suggestions. For example, a quick tap in Notes lets the AI condense lengthy meeting recaps into bullet points or refine email drafts for tone and clarity. The on-device foundation model ensures these edits happen privately without cloud uploads. Reviewers note the feature’s accuracy in maintaining user voice while improving grammar and conciseness, making it ideal for students, professionals and everyday communication.
Clean Up and Advanced Photo Editing The Photos app’s Clean Up tool uses AI to intelligently remove unwanted objects from images. Users select an area, and the system fills it seamlessly using surrounding context, producing natural results far beyond basic cropping. Combined with the iPhone 17e’s 48MP Fusion camera — which supports next-generation portraits with Focus and Depth Control — AI enhances editing precision. Features like intelligent object removal, AI-powered portrait lighting adjustments and stabilization elevate casual photography. Early hands-on reports praise how Clean Up handles complex scenes, such as crowds or backgrounds, without artifacts.
Live Translation for Seamless Communication A standout addition, Live Translation handles real-time text and audio across Messages, FaceTime and Phone calls. The feature detects languages automatically and provides subtitles or spoken translations on-device. This proves especially useful for multilingual users, travelers or international business. Powered by the A19’s Neural Engine, translations occur instantly with high accuracy, even offline for supported languages. Apple positions this as a core expansion of Apple Intelligence, broadening accessibility and fostering global connectivity without third-party apps.
Visual Intelligence and Smart Screenshot Actions Users can capture a screenshot and instantly query its contents with Visual Intelligence. The AI analyzes on-screen elements — whether a product, landmark or text — and offers actions like searching the web, adding to Notes or translating. This extends to camera-based queries: point the device at an object for instant identification and details. Integrated with the 48MP camera and improved image signal processor, it delivers quick, relevant insights. The tool shines in everyday scenarios, from shopping to learning, providing contextual help without switching apps.
Notification Summaries and Priority Insights Apple Intelligence scans incoming notifications to generate concise summaries, highlighting key details while reducing clutter. It prioritizes urgent alerts — such as flight changes or family messages — and groups related items intelligently. In Mail and Messages, AI surfaces important threads first. This feature minimizes distractions while ensuring nothing critical is missed. With the iPhone 17e’s efficient A19 chip, processing remains fast and battery-friendly, contributing to up to 26 hours of video playback.
The iPhone 17e also supports satellite connectivity features like Emergency SOS via satellite, enhanced by AI for better location accuracy in remote areas. Its 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display with Ceramic Shield 2 offers sharp visuals for reviewing AI-generated content, while MagSafe enables fast wireless charging and accessory compatibility.
Priced to appeal to budget-conscious buyers, the device includes 256GB base storage (double previous entry models), a premium matte finish in black, white and soft pink, and robust privacy protections — all AI processing occurs on-device where possible. Analysts view the iPhone 17e as Apple’s push to expand its AI-capable installed base, accelerating adoption ahead of future ecosystem expansions.
As Apple Intelligence matures with iOS updates, the iPhone 17e positions itself as more than an affordable option — it’s a gateway to intelligent, privacy-respecting features that enhance daily life. For users upgrading from older models or seeking AI without premium pricing, the device delivers compelling value in a competitive market.
US firm Huntsman Corporation is considering closing its Wilton International site where around 100 people work producing aniline
(Image: Wilton International)
The American owner of a Teesside chemical plant is reportedly mulling its closure amid soaring energy costs. Approximately 100 people work at Huntsman’s Wilton International site, producing the versatile polymer used in everything from coatings to adhesives.
The company is led by chairman and chief executive officer Peter Huntsman, who assumed control of the family firm in 2000, having driven forward the acquisition of ICI’s industrial chemicals business the year before.
The Redcar factory is one of the last surviving plants of the former ICI group and Huntsman’s sole North East site, manufacturing aniline, a chemical used in a range of products including car seats, textiles, agricultural chemicals, herbicides, photographic chemicals and aircraft components.
However, bosses say sourcing basic raw materials in the UK can now cost up to seven times higher than overseas.
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As a result, the company is reportedly contemplating shutting the Wilton plant if energy prices remain at current levels for the next three months. Mr Huntsman stated the recent surge in gas prices as a result of the Middle East conflict was proving to be “another nail in the coffin” for industry in Europe.
Last year the global business unveiled a $100m cost-cutting programme which included 600 job losses and the closure of seven sites in Europe. Huntsman Corporation, which has its headquarters in Texas, owns and operates more than 60 plants across the US, Europe, south-east Asia and the Middle East, but states that its UK and European sites are more exposed to international gas markets, where prices have climbed to their highest level since the start of the Ukrainian conflict.
Mr Huntsman stated: “You’re not seeing this in China, America or the Middle East, surprisingly, where the war is. You’re seeing it in the EU and the UK, and they’re being hit the hardest.”, reports Teesside Live.
“If today’s economics were to stay in place for the next three months, I would shut down my [UK] facility and I’d be importing product from China or the United States. Four years ago, my lowest cost aniline in the entire world came from the UK. That’s how recently I was competitive. Right now, this week, it is the most expensive.
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“We used to have more investment in the UK than we did in North America. It was a vital footprint to our company. And today we’re down to one asset left there. I’ve laid off enough people in the UK that it is one of the greatest disappointments of my entire career.”
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