Raphael Stevens

Bed Bath & Beyond has received interest from companies that want to buy its BuyBuy Baby business, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The home goods retailer agreed last month that it would explore whether it should sell or spin off that banner, as part of a settlement with activist investor and GameStop Chair Ryan Cohen.
The baby gear business has been a bright spot for Bed Bath, especially as it struggles with supply chain challenges and undergoes a broad turnaround effort.

A view of the atmosphere during the Whitney Port & Bundle Organics #MomAsYouAre buybuyBABY product launch on November 17, 2018 in Torrance, California.
Randy Shropshire | Getty Images

Bed Bath & Beyond’s shares have jumped on news that the company is considering offers to buy its BuyBuy Baby business.
The news was reported by The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources. According to the report, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and Tailwind Acquisition are among the companies interested in the baby apparel and supplies retailer.

The home goods retailer recently struck a deal with activist investor Ryan Cohen, chair of GameStop and co-founder of Chewy, who owns a stake in the company through his firm RC Ventures. As part of the deal, Bed Bath agreed to do a strategic review of BuyBuy Baby, one of the bright spots of the company’s business. It also agreed to add three new directors to its board as part of the truce.
The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Led by CEO and Target veteran Mark Tritton, Bed Bath & Beyond is trying to refresh its stores and its brand. Yet investors — including Cohen — have grown impatient as the company has put up declining sales numbers and struggled with supply chain bottlenecks.
Same-store sales dropped 12% across Bed Bath’s business in the most recent quarter that ended Feb. 26, compared with the year-ago period. Over the past two quarters, Bed Bath said it has missed out on a total of about $275 million in sales as it struggles to move merchandise out of ports and onto shelves, causing many popular items to be out of stock.
BuyBuy Baby’s same-store sales, on the other hand, grew by low single digits in the most recent quarter.

In an interview with CNBC in mid-April, Tritton said Bed Bath’s namesake store banner and the baby banner are in different stages. “Where we have one business going through a reformation, we have another one going through accelerated growth” he said.
He said shareholders aren’t giving the parent company credit for the growth of the baby business.
But, he said, “there is no definitive sense that we will spin off BuyBuy Baby. What we’ve agreed to do is review the strategic priority of BuyBuy Baby and how do we unlock the shareholder value more profitably. And there are a number of options on the table.”

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Fugitive former car executive Carlos Ghosn has said he expects to receive a “fair trial” in France after being issued an arrest warrant.
Speaking to CNBC Friday, Ghosn said he trusted the French justice system to treat him correctly in a clear criticism against Japan.
French authorities on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for the former Renault-Nissan executive who famously skipped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon in a box.

Carlos Ghosn, former Nissan chief executive officer, is in an ongoing legal battle amid allegations of financial misconduct.
Bloomberg | Getty Images

Carlos Ghosn has said he would receive a “fair trial” in France after being issued an arrest warrant in the latest of a string of charges brought against the disgraced former auto executive.
Speaking to CNBC Friday in Beirut, Ghosn said he trusted the French justice system to treat him correctly, even if he did not receive the same treatment from the media and wider society.

“I think yes, I can get a fair trial,” he told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble.

“I will not get fair treatment, but I will get a fair trial,” he said, citing the media’s apparently disproportionate coverage of lavish parties and excessive spending during his tenure as an auto CEO.
French authorities on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for the former Renault-Nissan executive who famously skipped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon in a box.
The warrant relates to an investigation into allegations of 15 million euros ($16.2 million) in suspicious payments between Renault and an Omani car dealership during Ghosn’s tenure. The allegations involve misappropriation of company assets, corruption and money laundering.

Four others, including current owners or former directors of Suhail Bahwan Automobiles, were also issued with arrest warrants.

It is the latest in a series of accusations brought against the ex-car industry supremo, who was first arrested in Japan in November 2018 and charged with multiple financial misdeeds while running Nissan. Ghosn denies all charges.

‘Suspicious’ timing

Ghosn said Friday that he was not surprised by the arrest warrant, describing it as part of the “natural process” for French investigators. However, he said he was surprised to learn about it, not from authorities, but in a newspaper.
“What surprised me is the fact that I learned about it by reading in an American newspaper,” he said, referring to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news Thursday.
Ghosn added that the timing of the warrant was “suspicious,” given the forthcoming French presidential elections this Sunday.

Both President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen have taken tough stances on CEO pay in the lead up to Sunday’s presidential run-off as public scrutiny over the remuneration of France’s top bosses intensifies. The French government is also the largest shareholder of Renault.
When asked about the timing of the arrest warrant, he said he could not speculate.
“I don’t know. I can’t speculate on that. Frankly, the timing is more than suspicious. You know, why do you want to do it today? Why do it Friday? Why can’t you do it Monday, I mean? This is something which has been lasting for years,” he said.
Spokespersons for the French justice ministry, the French government and the judicial court of Nanterre —which is heading the investigation — were not immediately available when contacted by CNBC for comment.
Nonetheless, Ghosn he said he expects any hearing to be independent, regardless of who wins.
“Fortunately in France, justice is somehow independent of the political power, which obviously is not the case in Japan,” he said. Ghosn has repeatedly criticized the Japanese legal system as it continues to pursue him for alleged financial misdemeanors during his time at the helm of Nissan.

Japanese officials, meanwhile, have refuted Ghosn’s claims, defending the country’s justice system as “fair and open.” Japan’s Ministry of Justice published a 3,000-word article in 2020 outlining questions and answers about its treatment of criminals. A spokesperson for the Japanese justice ministry was not immediately available when contacted by CNBC for comment.
Ghosn’s spokesperson said earlier Friday that he would be happy to stand trial in France to clear his name. Still, the feasibility of that remains in doubt.
Ghosn is barred from leaving Lebanon as he is still subject to an extradition request from Japan. Though that request is unlikely to be approved, his passport is currently held by Lebanese authorities.
The Brazil-born auto titan was raised in Beirut and is a citizen of Brazil, France and Lebanon.As a Lebanese citizen, he’s protected from extradition.

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Life Changes

Definitions for how much it takes to be “high net worth” vary from $400,000 to $1 million.
Yet most people do not ever see themselves fitting into that category, a survey finds.
Still, calculating your personal net worth can be a helpful exercise for identifying and achieving your financial goals, one expert says.

cdwheatley | E+ | Getty Images

People have wide-ranging views of what it means to be “high net worth,” according to a survey from digital wealth manager Personal Capital.
Yet most people — 74% — don’t see themselves ever fitting into that category.

When 2,209 adults were asked what they would consider high net worth, the median average among all responses was $400,000.

More from Life Changes:

Here’s a look at other stories offering a financial angle on important lifetime milestones.

Meanwhile, 32% of respondents agree with the broadly accepted definition of individual high net worth as having $1 million or more in investable assets.
Only 23% of survey respondents believe they will ever achieve high net worth status.
Just 35% of people are confident they know what net worth means, though 91% say they have heard of it.

There’s no time like the present to sit down and say, ‘Where am I at?’

Michelle Brownstein
Vice president of the Private Client Group at Personal Capital

Knowing your net worth is the first step to getting a good financial plan in place that will help you achieve your financial goals, said Michelle Brownstein, a certified financial planner and vice president of the Private Client Group at Personal Capital in San Francisco.

“Having a good bird’s-eye view of your financial situation is such an important exercise,” Brownstein said.
“There’s no time like the present to sit down and say, ‘Where am I at?'” she added.

How to calculate your net worth

To determine your personal net worth, start by adding all your assets — checking and savings accounts, 401(k) and other retirement savings, other investments, and your home’s value.
Then, subtract all your debts, including credit card balances, student loans and mortgages.
The result is your personal net worth.
If your net worth is negative, that means you have more debts than assets. In that case, you should prioritize paying off high-interest balances first, Brownstein said.

If your net worth is positive, but lower than where you want it to be, you may identify goals that can help you improve it, such as by building an emergency fund or saving for retirement or to buy a house.
Even small tweaks, like cutting down on daily expenses by eating in instead of dining out, can add up to big savings over time, Brownstein said.
What’s more, by prioritizing your goals, you may be able to put yourself on track to achieve them faster, such as retiring earlier than you had anticipated, she said.

Retirement accounts represent 55% of the wealth of high net worth individuals, according to Personal Capital data.
The survey was conducted in March by Morning Consult on behalf of Personal Capital.
Correction: Michelle Brownstein is vice president of the Private Client Group at Personal Capital in San Francisco. An earlier version misstated her title. More

From chasing down yachts to seizing Italian villas, the global effort to punish Russian oligarchs for their financial ties to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been unprecedented. For its part, the U.S. has arranged its own special task force — known as Task Force “KleptoCapture” — within the Department of Justice to seize the assets of the Russian elite who try to evade sanctions.
“This time around, the effort to track down their assets is much greater,” Timothy Frye, professor of post-Soviet foreign policy at Columbia University, told CNBC. “It’ll take a long time to dig through a lot of the dodgy real estate purchases and the like, but there does seem some commitment to make that happen.”

It’s unclear, however, whether the oligarchs hold enough sway over Putin to prompt an end to Russia’s ongoing barrage against Ukraine, experts say. Imposing the sanctions against the Russian oligarchs may also prove difficult given the U.S.’ strong protections over property rights, Douglas Rediker, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told CNBC.
“I’m not privy to intelligence that is not public, but it is hard to point to the specific connection between at least some of the financial oligarchs and what is going on in Ukraine right now at the behest of President Putin,” Rediker explained.
“That does not mean that their behavior has been squeaky clean or is defensible, or they are not guilty of a variety of alleged sins,” Rediker said.
Watch the video above to find out how the Russia’s oligarchs came to power, and whether global sanctions against the billionaires could help bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.

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The traditional workforce unemployment rate remains high among Black women.
Ulta, Sephora and Target have created start-up incubators and diversity programs, providing mentorship, financial support and new business opportunities.
“It was game-changing for me as a founder, and it was game-changing for my company,” the winner of last year’s Black Girl Ventures pitch competition told CNBC.

Ulta Beauty has doubled the number of Black-owned brands that it carries.
Ulta Beauty

Major beauty retailers are boosting small, minority-owned businesses as Black female entrepreneurship helps bridge an employment gap.
As of last year, 17% of Black women in the U.S. were in the process of starting or running new businesses, according to the Harvard Business Review. That outpaces the 15% of white men and the 10% of white women who reported the same.

Yet, only 3% of Black women reported running mature businesses.
And the traditional workforce unemployment rate remains high among Black women, at 5.5% in March, compared with overall U.S. unemployment of 3.6%, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate among Hispanic women during the same period was 4.2%. For white women it was 2.8%.
In an effort to assist small businesses and advance Black entrepreneurship opportunities, major retailers such as Ulta, Sephora and Target have created start-up incubators and diversity programs, providing mentorship, financial support and new business opportunities.
This month, Ulta Beauty partnered with incubator Rare Beauty Brands and Black Girl Ventures, a foundation that funds and scales Black- and Brown-founded businesses, on the group’s second pitch competition for minority-owned beauty start-ups. The competition is a live, crowdfunded event where founders create a three-minute pitch in hopes of elevating their businesses.
The first-place winner will receive accounting consultations, $10,000 and a spot on Ulta’s product shelves for at least six months. Winners are picked based on audience votes. Voting between the seven finalists closed on April 14. The winner will be announced next week.

The competition also promises the chance at key mentoring. Black Girl Ventures offers coaching to applicants prior to the pitch, and Rare Beauty Brands works with business owners after their win.
“We already know that in the beauty industry, Black women consume more than their fair share of beauty products and yet, funding for Black female entrepreneurs is dramatically underdeveloped relative to where it should be,” said Rare Beauty Brands CEO Chris Hobson. “This is less about adding brand value to us and really more about righting a wrong and a way to say ‘Thank you’ to a big chunk of our consumers and try and be part of the solution here.”

Kim Roxie, founder and CEO of Lamik Beauty, the first Black-owned clean beauty brand to be featured at Ulta, won last year’s pitch competition from Rare Beauty Brands and Black Girl Ventures. She said the partnership with Rare Beauty Brands was transformative for her business.
“It was game-changing for me as a founder, and it was game-changing for my company,” Roxie told CNBC. “They allowed me to utilize their team in a way that I would have had to try to hire all those different people and it would have been out of my reach.”
“They sort of subbed in and filled in that gap for me.”
Ulta Beauty has pledged to spend $50 million this year on diversity initiatives, including the launch of an accelerated program to support Black founders and putting money toward marketing their brands.
In February, the company said it is roughly halfway toward reaching a goal of 15% minority representation on shelves as part of its broader diversity initiatives.

Scaling brands

Sephora runs similar accelerated programs for entrepreneurs, aimed at improving representation of brands from BIPOC — Black, Indigenous and people of color — founders. The company’s Accelerate program, which launched five years ago, received more than 600 applications from small business owners this year.
“The Accelerate program serves as a springboard for nascent brands to become visible, viable, stable, and financially solvent,” said Rauvan Dulay, vice president of global merchandising, business development and strategy for Sephora. “Business growth in communities of color creates jobs, opportunity, stability and generational wealth — having the potential for decades of positive impact.”
Big-box retailer Target launched Target Takeoff in 2016 with similar objectives but aimed more at mature consumer packaged goods companies. Five years later, the company added Forward Founders to its portfolio, an incubator initiative designed to engage Black entrepreneurs much earlier in their start-up journeys by helping them navigate critical stages, such as ideation, product development and scaling to serve mass retail, according to the company.
The incubator announced its second cohort in January.
“Target has a longstanding, successful track-record of Accelerator programs and we saw an opportunity to do more, and think differently about how we support underrepresented entrepreneurs,” the company said in a statement to CNBC.
Target’s Forward Founders program received about four times the number of applicants it anticipated this year, the company said. It tripled the size of the annual cohort and created an all-new virtual program so all applicants could benefit.

— CNBC’s Melissa Repko contributed to this report.
Correction: The Black Girl Ventures pitch competition is a joint effort with Rare Beauty Brands. An earlier version of this story misidentified the parties involved.

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If you missed the April 18 tax deadline, you may cut back on penalties by filing your return promptly. 
The failure to file fee is 5% of unpaid taxes per month and late payments incur 0.5%, both capped at 25%.
However, with a history of on-time filing and payments, you may qualify for one-time penalty relief. 

Sergey Mironov | Moment | Getty Images

If you missed the April 18 tax deadline, you may cut back on penalties by filing your return promptly, according to the IRS. 
While it’s too late to request an extension, you can still reduce monthly late fees. Failure to file costs 5% of unpaid taxes per month and late payments incur 0.5%, both capped at 25%.

But you may qualify for one-time penalty relief with a history of on-time filings and payments, said Tommy Lucas, a certified financial planner and enrolled agent at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida.
More from Personal Finance:Hit with an unexpected tax bill? It’s time to adjust your withholdingsSupreme Court rejects challenge to SALT limit from New YorkWhat we learned from the Biden, Harris tax returns, according to experts
To be eligible, you can’t have late filings or penalties from the three prior tax years, and you must be current on all returns and balances, or have an IRS arrangement to cover unpaid taxes.
There’s no penalty if you’re getting a refund, said Sergio Garcia, a CFP and managing director of financial planning at BFS Advisory Group in Dallas. But the longer it takes to file, the more time you’ll wait for your payment.
You can still send your return through the IRS Free File service if your adjusted gross income is $73,000 or less for 2021, which applies to roughly 70% of taxpayers, or Free Fillable Forms until Oct. 20, if your AGI exceeds $73,000.

Most states also require an income tax return, but several places have a due date past the federal deadline. For information, you can find your state’s tax website here.

Although the federal tax deadline was April 18 for most Americans, some filers automatically have more time, including certain disaster victims, those serving in combat zones or U.S. citizens and resident aliens living abroad.
“In some cases, the extension period could be anywhere from an automatic two-month extension to as long as an additional 180 days to file,” said Jim Guarino, a Woburn, Massachusetts-based CFP and CPA at Baker Newman Noyes.
Even if you’re not required to file, it still may be beneficial to send a return, he said. It’s the only way to collect a refund or refundable tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit or child tax credit.

If you can’t pay your bill

If you’re unable to cover your tax bill, you may have options, such as a long-term payment plan through the IRS known as an installment agreement. But you must be up to date on all returns, and can’t owe more than $50,000 including tax, penalties and interest.
Other options may include an offer in compromise for taxpayers with financial difficulties, allowing you to settle with the IRS for less than you owe, or “currently not collectible” status, where the agency temporarily stops trying to collect. But you must meet specific criteria for each one to qualify.     

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