Raphael Stevens

Dollar General’s CEO said customers’ financial situations have worsened over the past year due to inflation.
CEO Todd Vasos said the company doesn’t expect the macro environment to improve in 2025.
Tariffs and potential changes to government entitlement programs present potential further headwinds for core customers, according to Vasos.

The exterior of a Dollar General convenience store on August 30, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said on Thursday that inflation continues to hurt the discounter’s customers and that the macroeconomic environment won’t improve this year.
On the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Vasos said customers are expecting value and convenience “more than ever” from the dollar-store chain.

“Our customers continue to report that their financial situation has worsened over the last year, as they have been negatively impacted by ongoing inflation. Many of our customers report they only have enough money for basic essentials, with some noting that they have had to sacrifice even on the necessities,” Vasos said. “As we enter 2025, we are not anticipating improvement in the macro environment, particularly for our core customer.”
Dollar General’s core consumer is “always strained” due to their economic status, but also resourceful, Vasos said.
“We’ve started to see where [our customer is] getting her sea legs, if you will, on the additional inflation that’s been very sticky out there, and she’s starting to understand her budgets even more,” Vasos said.
Part of the uncertainty, Vasos said, stems from the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the consumer.
When Trump imposed tariffs during his first term in office in 2018 and 2019, Dollar General had to raise some prices in line with others in the industry, Vasos said. But the general store was able to mitigate the impact back then and is “well positioned” to do so again this year, he said.

“Given the already stressed financial condition of our core customer, we are closely monitoring these and any other potential economic headwinds, including any changes to government entitlement programs,” Vasos said.
CFO Kelly Dilts said the company’s 2025 guidance factors in continued economic pressure on the consumer, but does not account for further changes to tariff policy or government initiatives like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which subsidizes food for low-income Americans.
For the fourth-quarter, Dollar General said same-store sales growth of 1.2% was driven entirely by 2.3% growth in average transaction. Customer traffic fell 1.1% during the period, “impacted by ongoing financial pressures of our core consumer,” Vasos said.
Alongside its fourth-quarter earnings, Dollar General said Thursday it would close 96 Dollar General stores and 45 Popshelf stores and will convert six other Popshelf stores into flagship banner locations this year. Popshelf primarily serves higher-income shoppers with lower-priced products.
Shares of Dollar General closed up nearly 7% on Thursday. More

Spirit Airlines just exited bankruptcy, meeting its target of emerging in the first quarter.
The low-cost airline competes in some of Southwest’s markets.
Executives at Delta and United also see a chance to grab some Southwest customers after the carrier announced it would start charging for checked bags.

A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 taxis at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving from Boston on September 1, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Spirit Airlines is out of bankruptcy, hitting its target to emerge in the first quarter, after a crippling few years. CEO Ted Christie says the carrier is leaner and ready to take on competitors, including rival Southwest Airlines.
Earlier this week, Southwest shocked customers by announcing it will start charging for checked bags for the first time in its half-century of flying, a huge strategy move for the largest domestic U.S. carrier. (There are some exceptions to Southwest’s new bag rules, which take effect in late May.)

“I think it’s going to be painful for a little bit as they find their footing, and we’re going to take advantage of that,” Spirit’s Christie said in an interview Thursday.
Southwest had been a standout in the U.S. by offering all customers two free checked bags, a perk that has endured recessions, spikes in fuel prices and other crises while most rivals introduced bag fees and raised them every few years.
Spirit Airlines, on the other hand, made a la carte pricing common in the U.S., with fees for seat assignments, checked bags and other add-ons. It’s a strategy most large airlines, except for Southwest, have copied in one form or another.
As Southwest starts charging for bags and introduces its first basic economy class, which doesn’t include a seat assignment or allow free changes, Spirit could possibly win over customers, Christie said.
Southwest said it would get rid of its single-class open seating model last year.

“There at least was an audience of people who were intentionally selecting and flying Southwest because they felt that it was easy. They knew they were going to get two bags,” Christie said. “Now that that’s no longer the case, it’s easy to say that they’re going to widen their aperture and they’re now going to look around.”
Spirit is far smaller than Southwest and even smaller than it was last year, but it competes with the airline in cities like Kansas City, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; and Milwaukee. If customers look on travel sites like Expedia, where Southwest is a new entrant, Spirit’s tickets could be cheaper and appear higher in results, Christie said.
Other airline executives have also said they expect to win over some Southwest customers.
Delta Air Lines President Glen Hauenstein said at a JPMorgan industry conference Tuesday that there are consumers who choose Southwest based on its free bag perk “and now those customers are up for grabs.”
Spirit, for its part, has recently been offering more ticket bundles that include things like seat assignments and luggage.
The carrier is now focused on returning to profitability. It posted a net loss of over $1.2 billion last year, more than double its loss in 2023 as it grappled with grounded jets because of a Pratt & Whitney engine recall, higher costs, more domestic competition and a failed acquisition by JetBlue Airways.
Spirit has rejected multiple recent merger attempts by fellow budget carrier Frontier Airlines. Christie said Thursday that nothing is “off the table” and that a fifth-largest airline in the U.S. as a low-cost carrier makes sense, but that the airline is focused on stabilizing itself after bankruptcy.
Through its restructuring process, which started in November, Spirit said it reduced its debt by about $795 million. The transaction converted debt into equity for major creditors. The carrier also received a $350 million equity infusion.
Spirit plans to relist its shares on a stock exchange but hasn’t set a date yet.

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Comcast and the International Olympic Committee announced a $3 billion deal to continue their broadcasting arrangement.
The partnership grants Comcast the media rights for the Olympics through 2036.
The moves comes as the company looks to expand its live sports coverage on streaming service Peacock.

Snoop Dogg attends the Artistic Gymnastics Women’s Qualification on day two of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games at Bercy Arena in Paris on July 28, 2024.
Arturo Holmes | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Comcast and the International Olympic Committee have agreed on a new deal that expands the company’s broadcast reach and extends its media rights for the Olympic Games through 2036.
In a Thursday news release, the committee said the roughly $3 billion agreement elevates Comcast from a media rights holder to a “strategic partner.” Comcast and the organization will collaborate on broadcast infrastructure, in-venue distribution and U.S. digital advertising, among other items, the IOC said.

“This agreement with Comcast is groundbreaking because it goes far beyond the traditional media rights agreement which we have had for many years with our valued partner,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in the announcement. “The media landscape is evolving rapidly and, by partnering with one of the world’s leading media and technology companies, we will ensure that fans in the United States are able to experience the Olympic Games like never before.”
Comcast’s previous agreement with the Olympic committee would have terminated after the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Australia. The new deal grants Comcast the rights to broadcast the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as well as the 2036 Summer Olympics in a not-yet-determined city.
“We live in a time when technology is driving faster and more fundamental transformation than we’ve seen in decades. This groundbreaking, new, long-term partnership between Comcast NBCUniversal and the International Olympic Committee not only recognises this dynamic but anticipates that it will accelerate,” Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said.
The deal comes as Comcast and its NBCUniversal unit aim to use live sports to drive subscriptions to the streaming service Peacock. NBC will spend about $2.5 billion per year to carry a package of NBA games starting next season.
During last year’s Summer Olympics in Paris, the push toward Olympics coverage on Peacock appeared to pay off for the company. Over 30 million people watched the Olympics on NBC’s television and streaming platforms, and advertising revenue came in at a record $1.2 billion.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. More

The White House has pulled President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former Rep. Dave Weldon.
The move Thursday came just hours before the Republican former Florida lawmaker was set to appear before the U.S. Senate for a confirmation hearing.
Weldon has long questioned the safety of certain vaccines.

Former Congressman Dave Weldon addresses a small crowd in The Villages, Fla.
Brendan Farrington | AP

The White House has pulled President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former Rep. Dave Weldon, the Senate’s health committee confirmed Thursday.
The move came just hours before the Republican former Florida lawmaker, a vaccine critic, was set to appear before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions for a confirmation hearing. The panel said the hearing, which had been scheduled for 10 a.m. ET, is canceled.

Axios first reported the decision on Thursday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads the Department of Health and Human Services, said Weldon wasn’t ready for the role, Axios reported. HHS oversees the CDC and all other federal health agencies.
Weldon said he had been excited to work with Kennedy and serve the country again, The New York Times reported Thursday.
“It is a shock, but, you know, in some ways, it’s relief,” Weldon told the paper. “Government jobs demand a lot of you, and if God doesn’t want me in it, I’m fine with that.”
He said he plans to “get on an airplane at 11 o’clock and I’m going to go home and I’m going to see patients on Monday,” according to the newspaper.
“I’ll make much more money staying in my medical practice,” Weldon added.

But Weldon’s views align closely with Kennedy, a notorious vaccine skeptic. Weldon, 71, has long questioned the safety of certain vaccines, promoting the false claim linking vaccines to autism. In 2006, Weldon appeared with parents who claimed that the CDC had covered up evidence tying vaccines to children developing autism.
The CDC will reportedly reexamine that link under Kennedy despite decades of research debunking it.
While in Congress, Weldon sponsored a bill that would transfer responsibility for vaccine safety away from the CDC. He claimed the agency had a conflict of interest because it purchases and promotes vaccines. The bill never made it past committees. 
Weldon is an internal medicine doctor who served in Congress for 14 years, from 1995 to 2009. 
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington and HELP committee member, has said she was “deeply disturbed” by Weldon’s false claims about vaccines.
In a statement on Thursday, Murray said, “While I have little to no confidence in the Trump administration to do so, they should immediately nominate someone for this position who at bare minimum believes in basic science and will help lead CDC’s important work to monitor and prevent deadly outbreaks.”
She added that Kennedy is already doing “incalculable damage by spreading lies and disinformation as the top health official in America.”
HHS did not immediately respond to a request to comment on why the administration pulled Weldon’s nomination and when Trump may choose another person for the post.

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Monarch Collective, an investment firm focused on women’s sports, has received further funding from its backers to increase the size of its investment fund from $150 million to $250 million.
The firm launched in 2023 and counts minority investments in the NWSL’s Angel City FC, BOS Nation and the San Diego Wave.
Monarch investors Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures and Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden recently upped their funding.

Claire Emslie #10 of Angel City FC passes against the Bay FC in the first half at PayPal Park on June 22, 2024 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
Eakin Howard | Getty Images

Billionaire-backed investment firm Monarch Collective has expanded the size of its fund in light of the continued surge in popularity of women’s sports.
The fund, which launched in 2023 is expanding from $150 million to $250 million, with most of the additional capital coming from existing investors, which include Melina French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden, and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland and partner Annie Imhoff.

New investors have come on board, too, the firm said in an announcement Thursday, including Beth Brooke, Ernst & Young’s former global vice chairman of public policy, and Elizabeth Yee, executive vice president of programs at The Rockefeller Foundation.
“We’ll be the largest fund in women’s sports,” said Kara Nortman, Monarch co-founder and managing partner. “You hear a lot of noise about people starting it now, but we’ve been at it for awhile.”
Monarch Collective formed to invest exclusively in women’s sports, particularly in leagues, teams and media rights.
Prior to Monarch, Nortman worked at a venture capital firm and was previously co-head of the mergers and acquisitions group at IAC. She also co-founded the National Women’s Soccer League’s Angel City FC in 2020. She started the firm alongside Jasmine Robinson, who was most recently at Causeway, a growth stage investment fund focused on sports, media, gaming and fitness. She also held investment roles at various firms, as well as the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.
Monarch typically takes minority stakes with its investments, but works closely with the owners of teams, Nortman said.

“We’re doing day-to-day, hands-on work alongside the control owner in terms of hiring teams, designing practice facilities, being a sounding board when something goes right or something goes wrong, really thinking through what is the unique fan experience in this [team’s] market and how does it tie to the [team’s] mission,” said Nortman. “And the amount of capital we could put to work against that has gone up.”
So far, Monarch has invested in three NWSL teams — Angel City FC, BOS Nation and the San Diego Wave. Last year, Angel City sold a controlling stake to journalist Willow Bay and Disney CEO Bob Iger for an undisclosed sum that valued the team at $250 million. The firm said it was the highest valuation on record for a professional women’s sports team.
Monarch was founded on the cusp of what has become one of the biggest spikes in popularity for women’s sports in years, if ever. In particular, rookie stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese helped to lift the Women’s National Basketball Association to record ratings last season, and in general, the audience around women’s sports has gained ground and attracted more advertisers.
As a result, investors are keen to take part in the growth.
“There’s no denying that women’s sports is surging, and that we’re also pioneers and experts in this. So people kept coming to us, wanting to work with us to build out business plans or really look at things before they even become investable,” Nortman said.
Monarch plans to invest in both U.S. and international teams in the near term, according to Thursday’s release.
“We tend to focus on the most mature women’s sports — so the ones where we see a path for media revenue to go up and to the right very predictably,” Nortman said. “The core thesis is that we can build to break even, or close to it, with team level revenues.”
Media rights for the WNBA, for example, could see a price reevaluation after the 2028 season to account for its recent growth in popularity, CNBC reported last year. The WNBA media rights were negotiated as part of the larger $77 billion NBA agreement, which begins next season. The WNBA-specific contract is valued at $2.2 billion over 11 seasons.

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Dollar General narrowly exceeded expectations on revenue for the fourth quarter.
The company initiated a store portfolio review that significantly impacted operating profit and earnings.
Dollar General expects same-store sales to grow between 1.2% and 2.2% in 2025.

A Dollar General store in Germantown, New York, on Nov. 30, 2023.
Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Dollar General on Thursday reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue that narrowly beat Wall Street estimates, while a store portfolio review cut into the chain’s profit.
As part of the reevaluation, the dollar-store chain said it will close 96 Dollar General stores and 45 Popshelf stores and will convert six other Popshelf stores into flagship banner locations in the first quarter. Popshelf stores cater to higher-income shoppers seeking inexpensive products.

Shares of the company rose 5% in premarket trading Thursday.
Here’s how the discounter did compared with what Wall Street was expecting for the quarter ended Jan. 31, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: 87 cents. That may not compare with an estimate of $1.50.
Revenue: $10.3 billion vs. $10.26 billion expected

Fourth-quarter revenue rose 4.5% from $9.86 billion during the same quarter in 2023. Revenue for the full year came in at $40.61 billion, up almost 5% from $38.69 billion in 2023.
For fiscal 2025, the chain forecasts revenue to grow between 3.4% and 4.4%, while Wall Street was expecting annual growth of 4.1%, according to LSEG. Dollar General expects earnings per share for the year to come in between $5.10 and $5.80, slightly under the $5.85 anticipated by analysts, according to LSEG.
Dollar General reported fourth-quarter net income of $191 million, or 87 cents per share, compared with net income of $402 million, or $1.83 per share, during the same quarter a year prior.

The discounter said its portfolio review impacted earnings per share by 81 cents.
Operating profit for the quarter fell over 49% year over year to $294 million. The company attributed $232 million in charges to the store closures from the portfolio review as well as Popshelf impairment charges.
“As we look to build on the substantial progress we made on our Back to Basics work in fiscal 2024, we believe this review was appropriate to further strengthen the foundation of our business,” said Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos in a news release. “While the number of closings represents less than one percent of our overall store base, we believe this decision better positions us to serve our customers and communities.”
Same-store sales, which Dollar General defines as revenue from stores open for at least 13 months, grew 1.2% year over year for the quarter. They’re expected to grow 1.2% to 2.2% for the coming fiscal year, the company said.
Dollar General announced in December that it was testing same-day delivery for customers. As inflation takes a toll on lower-income consumers, dollar stores like Dollar General and Dollar Tree have faced increased competition from retailers like Walmart with greater e-commerce presences.
In January, Dollar General said it would begin selling about 100 new private-brand products, most of which will fall under its Clover Valley label and includes items such as honey mustard and cinnamon rolls, in the first quarter.

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