Business
Ulta and Target will end deal for in-store beauty shops next year
Target has added new brands to its beauty department. At a growing number of stores, it also has mini Ulta Beauty shops with prestige brands.
Melissa Repko | CNBC
Ulta Beauty and Target said Thursday that they have decided to end a deal that opened makeup and beauty shops in hundreds of Target’s stores.
Shares of Target fell about 2% in early trading, while Ulta’s stock slid about 1%.
In a news release, the companies said the partnership — which also added some of Ulta’s merchandise to Target’s website — will end in August 2026. Target had added more than 600 Ulta Beauty shops to its stores since 2021, according to a company spokesperson. That’s nearly a third of Target’s 1,981 U.S. stores.
Ulta Beauty at Target shops carried a smaller and rotating assortment of the merchandise at the beauty retailer’s own stores. They were staffed by Target’s employees.
The loss of the popular beauty retailer’s products could be another blow to Target as it tries to woo back both shoppers and investors. Target’s annual sales have been roughly flat for four years and it expects sales to decline this fiscal year. Shares of the company are worth less than half of what the were back in 2021, when they hit an all-time closing high of $266.39. It also has faced backlash over both its Pride collection and its rollback of key diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Store traffic for Target has declined year over year nearly every week from the week of Jan. 27, days after the company’s DEI announcement, through the week of Aug. 4, according to Placer.ai, an analytics firm that uses anonymized data from mobile devices to estimate overall visits to locations. Target traffic had been up weekly year over year in the four weeks before Jan. 27.
The only exceptions to that trend were the two weeks on either side of Easter, when traffic rose less than 1% year over year, the firm’s data showed.
On earnings calls and in investor presentations, leaders of the Minneapolis-based company had touted Ulta’s shops and its trendy beauty brands as a way to drive store traffic.
At a investor presentation in New York City in March, CEO Brian Cornell highlighted beauty as a growth category for Target and cited it as reason for confidence in Target’s long-term business. He said the company had gained market share in beauty and its sales in the category rose by nearly 7% in the fiscal year that ended in early February.
Target’s CEO Brian Cornell, 66, is expected to depart the company soon. The longtime Target leader renewed his contract for approximately three years in September 2022 after the board scrapped its retirement age of 65.
David Bellinger, an analyst for Mizuho Securities who covers retailers, said in an equity research note on Thursday that Target’s “messy in-store operations” as well as issues with retail theft and insufficient staffing at stores likely contributed to the companies ending their partnership.
“Overall, we see losing the Ulta shop-in-shop relationship as a negative development and something else Target’s next CEO will have to grapple with,” he wrote.
In a statement on Thursday, Target Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez said the discounter is “proud of our shared success with Ulta Beauty and the experience we’ve delivered together.”
“We look forward to what’s ahead and remain committed to offering the beauty experience consumers have come to expect from Target – one centered on an exciting mix of beauty brands with continuous newness, all at an unbeatable value,” he said.
In a statement, Ulta’s Chief Retail Officer Amiee Bayer-Thomas described the Target deal as “one of many unique ways we have brought the power of beauty to guests nationwide.”
“As we continue to execute our Ulta Beauty Unleashed plans, we’re confident our wide-ranging assortment, expert services and inspiring in-store experiences will reinforce our leadership in beauty and define the next chapter of our brand,” she said.
Business
Trade talks: India, EU wrap up 14th round of FTA negotiations; push on to seal deal by December – The Times of India
India and the 27-nation European Union (EU) have concluded the 14th round of negotiations for a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) in Brussels, as both sides look to resolve outstanding issues and move closer to signing the deal by the end of the year, PTI reported citing an official.The five-day round, which began on October 6, focused on narrowing gaps across key areas of trade in goods and services. Indian negotiators were later joined by Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal in the final days to provide additional momentum to the talks.During his visit, Agrawal held discussions with Sabine Weyand, Director General for Trade at the European Commission, as both sides worked to accelerate progress on the long-pending trade pact.Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal recently said he was hopeful that the two sides would be able to sign the agreement soon. Goyal is also expected to travel to Brussels to meet his EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic for a high-level review of the progress made so far.Both India and the EU have set an ambitious target to conclude the negotiations by December, officials familiar with the matter said, PTI reported.Negotiations for a comprehensive trade pact between India and the EU were relaunched in June 2022 after a hiatus of more than eight years. The process had been suspended in 2013 due to significant differences over market access and tariff liberalisation.The EU has sought deeper tariff cuts in sectors such as automobiles and medical devices, alongside reductions in duties on products including wine, spirits, meat, and poultry. It has also pressed for a stronger intellectual property framework as part of the agreement.For India, the proposed pact holds potential to make key export categories such as ready-made garments, pharmaceuticals, steel, petroleum products, and electrical machinery more competitive in the European market.The India-EU trade pact talks span 23 policy chapters covering areas such as trade in goods and services, investment protection, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, technical barriers to trade, rules of origin, customs procedures, competition, trade defence, government procurement, dispute resolution, geographical indications, and sustainable development.India’s bilateral trade in goods with the EU stood at $136.53 billion in 2024–25, comprising exports worth $75.85 billion and imports valued at $60.68 billion — making the bloc India’s largest trading partner for goods.The EU accounts for nearly 17 per cent of India’s total exports, while India represents around 9 per cent of the bloc’s overall exports to global markets. Bilateral trade in services between the two partners was estimated at $51.45 billion in 2023.
Business
Telcos network costs rise: Gap between expenditure and revenue exceeds Rs 10,000 crore; COAI flags rising network investment burden – The Times of India
The gap between telecom operators’ network expenditure and revenue continues to widen, prompting industry body COAI to defend calls for higher mobile tariffs, citing the increasing financial burden of network deployment on service providers.Speaking at the India Mobile Congress, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Director General, SP Kochhar, told PTI that while the government has provided significant support to telecom operators through policies such as the right of way (RoW), several authorities continue to levy exorbitant charges for laying network elements.“Earlier, the gap until 2024 for infrastructure development and revenue received from tariffs was around Rs 10,000 crore. Now it has started increasing even further. Our cost of rolling out networks should be reduced by a reduction in the price of spectrum, levies etc. The Centre has come out with a very good ROW policy. It is a different matter that many people have not yet fallen in line and are still charging extremely high,” Kochhar said.He also defended the recent cut in data packs for entry-level tariff plans by select operators, stressing that the move was necessary given competitive pressures.Kochhar pointed out that competition among the four telecom operators remains intense, and there has been no significant trend suggesting that consumers are shifting towards low-cost data options.“There is a need to find ways to make high network users pay more for the data. Seventy per cent of the traffic which flows on our networks is by 4 to 5 LTGs (large traffic generators like YouTube, Netflix, Facebook etc). They pay zero. Nobody will blame OTT but they will blame the network. Our demand to the government is that they [LTGs] should contribute to the development of networks,” Kochhar said.He added that the investments made by Indian telecom operators are intended for the benefit of domestic consumers and are not meant to serve as a medium for profit for international players who do not bear any cost.
NEW DELHI: Equity investments in India’s real estate sector jumped 48 per cent year-on-year to $3.8 billion in the July-September period (Q3), a report said on Friday. This growth in inflow was primarily fuelled by capital deployment into land or development sites and built-up office and retail assets, according to the report by real estate consulting firm CBRE South Asia.
In the first nine months of 2025, the equity investments increased by 14 per cent on-year to $10.2 billion — from $8.9 billion in the same period last year.
The report highlighted that land or development sites and built-up office and retail assets accounted for more than 90 per cent of the total capital inflows during Q3 2025.
On the category of investors, developers remained the primary drivers of capital deployment, contributing 45 per cent of the total equity inflows, followed by Institutional investors with a 33 per cent share.
CBRE reported that Mumbai attracted the highest investments at 32 per cent, followed by Pune at around 18 per cent and Bengaluru at nearly 16 per cent.
Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and CEO – India, South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa, CBRE, said that the healthy inflow of domestic capital demonstrates the sector’s resilience and depth.
“In the upcoming quarters, greenfield developments are likely to continue witnessing a robust momentum, with a healthy spread across residential, office, mixed-use, data centres, and I&L sectors,” he added.
In addition to global institutional investors, Indian sponsors accounted for a significant part of the total inflows.
“India’s ability to combine strong domestic capital with global institutional participation will remain a key differentiator in 2026 and beyond,” added Gaurav Kumar, Managing Director, Capital Markets and Land, CBRE India.
CBRE forecasts a strong finish for the investment activity in 2025, fuelled by capital deployment into built-up office and retail assets.
For the office sector, the limited availability of investible core assets for acquisition indicate that opportunistic bets are likely to continue gaining traction, the report noted.
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