Judith Levy_

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

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Target Shares Surge on Report of Ackman Stake

Also, Don, please note the following from Target's Q1 earnings call: "Our credit card operations also continued to deliver strong profit performance. Average receivables grew 11.0% from a year ago, which resulted in a low double-digit increase in credit card revenues. In addition, we leveraged slower growth in our credit card expenses to produce a 21% increase in credit card contribution to EBT. On an annualized basis, our credit card contribution to EBT as a percent of average receivables was 8.7% this year, up from 8.0% from a year ago. As a reminder, we've redefined credit card contribution to EBT to exclude intra-company merchant fees, and include the effect of new accounts and loyalty rewards discounts as expenses of our card programs."

More information about Target's credit-card unit can be found in the transcript of the earnings call, the link for which is at the end of the article above.

Regards,
Judith

Target Shares Surge on Report of Ackman Stake

Hi Don,

Bloomberg was my source for information on the credit-card unit (see source links). According to that piece, Piper Jaffray analyst Jeffrey P. Klinefelter said the unit contributed about 20% of Target's operating income during Q1, rising 53% to $693 million.

Madison Dearborn in Talks to Buy CDW -- WSJ

Yes. Please see "Madison Dearborn to Buy CDW for $7.3 Billion" (hardware.seekingalpha....).