ADT reports fourth quarter and full year
2022 results


Continued strong sequential and year-over-year growth in revenue,
up 21% for full year 2022 versus prior year

Fourth consecutive quarter of record-high customer retention
and recurring monthly revenue balance

Improving capital efficiency with record revenue payback

Driving momentum into 2023 with expected continued growth in revenue, earnings and cash flow

ADT, the most trusted brand in smart home and small business security, today reported results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022.

Fourth quarter 2022

• Total revenue of $1.6 billion, up 19% or 8% excluding Solar, and end-of-period recurring monthly revenue (RMR) of $374 million, up 4%

• Record-high customer retention with gross customer revenue attrition at a record low of 12.5%

Full year 2022

• Total revenue of $6.4 billion, up 21% or 7% excluding Solar

“2022 was a very strong year for ADT. We delivered strong results with top-line growth while setting records in customer retention, recurring monthly revenue balance and revenue payback. Our results reflect the progress ADT is making as we shift from a traditional security company towards an innovative business poised for accelerating growth in new markets,” said ADT President and CEO Jim DeVries. “We concluded the year with positive momentum in our business, along with launching our partnership with State Farm and advancing our strategic relationship with Google. As we advance into 2023, we are forecasting solid growth in revenue, earnings and free cash flow, continuing our positive trajectory across our businesses and demonstrating progress on our 2025 goals.” adt.com

The U.S. Crime Surge
The Retail Impact

NY Lawmakers Unveil 'Urgent' Legislation to Protect Retail Workers
The bill would put retail workers in the same category as cops and fire fighters 

Pols target NYC’s violent, repeat shoplifters with bill to protect retailer workers just like cops, firefighters
The Big Apple’s shoplifting epidemic has sparked new moves in Albany aimed at clamping down on violent and unrepentant thieves, The Post has learned.

A bill set to be introduced in the Legislature as early as this week by state Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-Staten Island) and Assemblyman Manny De Los Santos (D-Inwood) would make it a felony to commit even minor assaults against retail workers.

The proposal would put retail workers in the same protected category as cops, firefighters, paramedics and other front-line workers. That proposal would also allow judges to set bail for the accused perps because second-degree assault is among the crimes not covered by New York’s controversial, 2019 bail reform law.

Scarcella-Spanton said the bill wasn’t meant to serve as a “rollback” of bail reform. “It’s all about making fixes where we can,” she said.

Another bill introduced on Feb. 8 would elevate the crime of petit larceny from a misdemeanor to a felony if it’s committed within two years of a previous conviction.

The proposal by state Sen. Kevin Thomas (D-Long Island) and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-The Bronx) would increase the maximum punishment to 1-1/3 to four years in prison for a first-time felon, up from one year in jail.

Both moves were demanded recently by Collective Action to Protect our Stores, a group that represents nearly 4,000 independent grocers, The Post reported at the time.

In a statement Tuesday, the coalition said, “As we have seen with numerous attacks on workers and stores, this is urgent legislation.” nypost.com


ORC Fueled 'Hundreds of Millions of Dollars' in Losses at Target
Target CFO: ORC contributed to hundreds of millions in lost profits in 2022
With all due respect to Walgreens CFO James Kehoe, inventory shrinkage mostly at the hands of organized retail crime is still worth crying over if you are a retailer. Take Target, for example.

"It [inventory shrinkage] was certainly a headwind [last year]," Target CFO Michael Fiddelke told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday (video above). "We know we're not alone in seeing elevated levels of shrink and organized retail crime driving some of that theft."

Fiddelke said the profit impact amounted to "hundreds of millions of dollars of headwind." The issue is likely to challenge Target's bottom line in 2023, he added.

The increased amount of theft has caused retailers to take additional measures, such as hiring more security guards and locking up easy-to-shoplift items, notably household essentials such as toothpaste.

“These highly sophisticated criminal rings jeopardize employee and customer safety and disrupt store operations," Mark Mathews, NRF vice president for research development and industry analysis, wrote in the report. "Retailers are bolstering security efforts to counteract these increasingly dangerous and aggressive criminal activities."

While Target and other retailers are still pulling out all the stops to prevent organized retail theft in their stores, Walgreens (WBA) appears to be over the matter.

During an early January earnings call, Walgreens' Kehoe said inventory shrinkage was down to about "mid-twos" in terms of a percentage of sales. In 2022, the number was closer to 3.5%.

"Maybe we cried too much last year when we were hitting numbers that were 3.5% of sales," Kehoe crowed. "We've put in incremental security in the stores in the first quarter. Actually, probably we put in too much, and we might step back a little bit from that."

Send those security folks over to Target, James. finance.yahoo.com


Nike's Plan to Fund the Police Makes National Headlines
The company wants to pay officers to guard its store in Portland

Nike Offers to Pay Police to Guard Portland Store From Shoplifters

Nike has reportedly offered to pay for police officers to guard its community store in Portland, Oregon, in an effort to combat shoplifting and retail theft.

According to Oregon Live, the footwear manufacturing company sent a letter to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler earlier this month asking for additional security at its community store, which has been mostly closed to the public, to increase safety. Nike also said in its letter that it would cover the cost of the additional officers needed.

"The safety of our employees and consumers is a responsibility Nike takes very seriously," a Nike spokesperson told Newsweek. "Our first Community store on Union Street, now NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, opened in 1984. We actively invest and participate in the community, providing grants to local schools and community-based organizations, building and renovating play spaces, organizing community sporting events, volunteering time to get kids active, and through the community engagement of our Nike teammates.

"Because a safe and secure workplace is essential for our employees, consumers, and communities, we have proposed a sustained and coordinated partnership with the City to better protect employees, consumers, and the community surrounding our MLK Community Store."

The report comes amid a wave of crime in Portland and other parts of the state, which include a rise in homicide and retail theft. According to Oregon Live, in 2022, Portland recorded 101 homicides, which broke the record of 92 from the previous year. A report from the National Retail Federation found that in 2021, "retailers saw an average 26.5% increase in ORC [organized retail crime] incidents in over the previous year." newsweek.com


Another Progressive Targeted for Recall Amid Crime Surge
New Orleans mayor under fire as the city becomes 'Murder Capital' of America

Amid a crime spike, New Orleans mayor faces a possible recall election
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell faces a possible recall election as violent crime spikes, uncollected trash overflows into the streets and she contends with allegations she had an affair with a member of her security detail.

The first Black woman to be elected mayor in 2018, Cantrell easily won re-election in 2021. But her popularity has waned as the number of murders has climbed, allowing New Orleans to capture a title last year that no municipality wants — the murder capital of the nation.

Organizers of an effort to recall Cantrell delivered nearly a dozen boxes of signed petitions to the registrar of voters’ office last week, just ahead of a deadline to seek a recall election. Organizers said they gathered enough signatures to force a recall vote.

With a population of 377,000 that is 58% Black, New Orleans had the highest number of murders per capita in the nation in the first half of last year, after falling off dramatically in 2019, according to NBC affiliate WDSU in New Orleans.

Homicides in New Orleans had increased about 144% through mid-September in 2022, compared with the first nine months of 2019, according to data from the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a public safety nonprofit. By the end of the year, a total of 265 homicides had been committed in the city, according to official numbers.

In January, Cantrell announced the formation of a violent crime reduction task force, saying New Orleans was part of a trend occurring in major cities across the country, where violent crime is rising and the number of officers on the streets is falling because of staffing shortages. nbcnews.com


Voters Fire Chicago Mayor Over Crime Fears
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago Loses Her Bid for Re-election

The result was a resounding defeat that reflected widespread dissatisfaction from voters over her handling of crime. Challengers to her political left and right advanced to a runoff.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago lost her bid for a second term on Tuesday, The Associated Press said, a resounding defeat that reflected widespread dissatisfaction from voters over her handling of crime and policing in the nation’s third-largest city.

Four years ago, Ms. Lightfoot made history as the first Black woman to be elected mayor of Chicago when she swept all 50 of the city’s wards. But she saw her popularity plunge during the coronavirus pandemic as Chicago suffered a spike in violent crime, with looting and destruction on its famed Magnificent Mile in 2020.

The race showcased the political divide that has emerged in some of America’s largest, most liberal cities, where hard-on-crime policies have increasingly resonated with voters.

The contest for mayor is now narrowed to two candidates with starkly different views on policing and education. Mr. Vallas has portrayed Chicago as being in a state of turmoil under Ms. Lightfoot’s leadership. With an endorsement from the local Fraternal Order of Police, he has run an aggressive campaign arguing that he can make the city safer, calling for bolstering the police force, improving arrest rates for serious crimes and expanding charter schools. nytimes.com


Mass shootings: What would you do vs. what should you do?

Alabama prosecutors want mandatory prison for felons who violate gun prohibitions

COVID Did Not Kill In-Person Shopping After All
Cities with the most opportunity for new retail storefronts

Cities with the most opportunity for new retail storefronts

COVID-19 was supposed to change the way Americans shopped. Experts widely predicted that people's new habits of purchasing most goods online or using in-store and curbside pickup would remain after the pandemic ended. But two years later, consumers have gone back to in-person shopping.

Brick-and-mortar retail sales topped $382 billion in August 2022, according to Lee & Associates, almost 25% higher than before COVID-19. In-person Black Friday shopping in 2022 was also up 12% from 2021, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.

As consumers flock back to stores, retailers are opening more physical locations. U.S. retail space is at its lowest vacancy rate in 15 years, at 4.3%, according to Lee & Associates.

Cities with the most opportunity for new retail storefronts
 

#1. Cincinnati #2. St. Louis (tie) #2. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (tie) #4. Omaha, Nebraska #5. Phoenix #6. Trenton, New Jersey (tie) #6. Inland Empire, California (tie) #8. Boise, Idaho

#9. Houston #10. Vineland, New Jersey #11. Dallas-Fort Worth #12. Spartanburg, South Carolina (tie) #12. Columbus, Ohio (tie) #14. Detroit #15. Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania (tie) #15. Chicago (tie) stacker.com

The Rest of the World is Returning to the Office
As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office

Return-to-office rates in Paris and Tokyo have climbed to over 75%, while U.S. often sits around half

While U.S. offices are half empty three years into the Covid-19 pandemic, workplaces in Europe and Asia are bustling again.

Americans have embraced remote work and turned their backs on offices with greater regularity than their counterparts overseas. U.S. office occupancy stands at 40% to 60% of prepandemic levels, varying within that range by month and by city. That compares with a 70%-to-90% rate in Europe and the Middle East, according to JLL, a property-services firm that manages 4.6 billion square feet of real estate globally.

Return to office was even more common in Asia, JLL said, where rates ranged from 80% to 110%—meaning that in some cities more people are in the office nowadays than before the pandemic.

Bigger homes, longer commutes and a tighter labor market help explain why Americans spend less time in the office than Europeans and Asians, workplace consultants say. wsj.com


Lawmakers Study the Impact of COVID Lockdowns
House Republicans warn about loss of public trust after COVID lockdowns
The Republican-led House panel investigating the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off its first public event Tuesday, with multiple GOP lawmakers laying blame for Americans losing trust in health officials directly at the feet of those who promoted lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a roundtable on "Preparing for the Future by Learning From the Past," grilling medical experts on what broad public health restrictions during the pandemic did to Americans of all ages.

Multiple studies have been done on the effectiveness of lockdowns since the pandemic's peak.  foxnews.com


How the pandemic damaged creativity—and why remote work is only part of the problem

Shanghai’s return to business tests China reopening