The U.S. tax reform pushed by the Trump Administration has prompted many corporations to announce bonuses and wage hikes for their employees. Starbucks is one of the latest to boost its compensation and benefits package in light of the recent changes in U.S. tax law. Ron Crawford, VP of Benefits at Starbucks, was with us to discuss the company's investment in benefits.
Starbucks said the U.S. tax reform accelerated its latest investment in paid leave and wages. Had there not been tax reform, Crawford said Starbucks still would have made investments in compensation, but the timing and the extent of it may have been different. The offerings will total more than $250 million for more than 150,000 workers.
Digital apps and emerging technologies are driving more coffee runs to Starbucks, says Crawford. He believes digitization has brought more customers to its stores and boosted interactions between customers and employees. Starbucks is pumping in $7 billion of capital to build and renovate stores, manufacturing plants and technology platforms in the U.S. over the next five years.
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Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
