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Tag: Finance
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Exclusive: AI financial platform Rowspace raises $50 million round led by Sequoia to help investment firms take on messy data | Fortune
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After meeting in graduate school at MIT, Michael Manapat and Yibo Ling embarked on different career paths. Manapat held chief technical roles at Stripe and Notion, while Ling led finance teams at Uber and Binance. Still, they both confronted a similar challenge: How to assemble fragmented data to make important decisions about capital allocation, workflows and more.
When OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, Ling tested to see how well it could carry out basic due diligence tasks. He quickly found the new AI tool was hampered by a familiar problem: Data. “Clearly there was a lot of promise, but it just wasn’t working. You need the right information in the right context,” he told Fortune.
That realization motivated Manapat and Ling to join forces to build Rowspace, an AI platform that allows financial outfits like private equity firms and hedge funds to turn their years of proprietary data into alpha. The company is publicly launching today with a $50 million funding round led by Sequoia, with participation from Emergence Capital, Stripe, and Conviction, along with other firms and angel investors.
At a time of pearl-clutching and market turmoil on whether large language models and foundation models will render software obsolete, Sequoia investor and co-steward Alfred Lin told Fortune that Rowspace is a prime example of the type of application that will thrive in the brave new AI-empowered world.
“The thing that people are talking about is the marginal line of code is very cheap to produce,” Lin said. “What we’re looking for now in almost every single company is product velocity, and how fast product velocity generates other things that become moats, which are like network effects and people using your product on a daily basis.”
Finding alpha
Manapat described Rowspace as the intelligence layer that sits on top of a firm’s data. The platform integrates all of an institution’s structured and unstructured data, whether in the form of documents or accounting systems or old PowerPoints, and performs reasoning in advance. “We’re focused on how we make sure we understand all of the underlying data to drive actual decision-making,” he said.
Rowspace’s approach to data sounds a lot like the one used by popular new consumer tools such as Claude Cowork, which can query a computer’s files and create presentations or research memos. Manapat said that Rowspace is different in crucial ways. For one, it doesn’t take possession of a firm’s data, instead doing processing inside its own cloud systems.
On a deeper level, Manapat said that foundation models like Anthropic are good at last mile tasks, like formatting a pitchbook in PowerPoint or building a cash flow model, which are generally completed with a real-time search approach.
“That’s not where our focus is,” Manapat said. As he explained, there are no ways to ensure the agent looked at all available information or took the time to reason in advance of making a conclusion, which is time-consuming and expensive. Instead, Rowspace is tasked with deeper analysis of data, such as being able to notice minute details from years of a company’s finances. That will always give the platform an advantage over the more general purpose Anthropics of the world.
“The foundation model is not going to be able to cater to every single [thing] that someone wants to do in all these different industries,” said Lin. “That is going to be left to players like Rowspace, specifically for the vertical they’re focused on.”
Manapat admitted that pure software or user interfaces are going to be hard to defend, especially as foundation models rapidly advance. But he said that’s why Rowspace’s focus is more on compiling and synthesizing a firm’s data in a secure way, and doing so with a financially literate team. The engineering corps comes both from tech-first companies like Notion and Stripe as well as private equity and credit. “There’s no one size fits all solution in financial services, because in some sense, each firm’s alpha comes from their approach,” Manapat said. “We’re trying to help you learn from your own data and knowledge and approach and amplify that.”
While Rowspace declined to name its valuation or early customers, Manapat said that they include longstanding and name-brand private equity and credit firms, as well as crossover firms that work in both public and private markets. He added that Rowspace is working with about ten top firms with seven-figure annual contract values.
“Customers use this tool to make money, and that’s where the rubber meets the road,” Lin said. “If we consistently, with our tool, help people use AI to make better decisions, they will make money, and they’ll do it better than others.”
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Leo Schwartz
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Industry’s Myha’la and Marisa Abela on Fighting, Friendship, and Platonic Kissing in the Club
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“We are old now,” Myha’la says with a smile to her Industry costar Marisa Abela on Zoom. Considering the fact that both actors are 29 years old, that sentiment is far from true. However, four seasons into the buzzy British banking drama, it does feel like we’re a long way from the early days of Industry when their respective characters, Harper Stern and Yasmin Kara-Hanani, were first-years on the trading floor at Pierpoint & Co, diving headfirst into the wild world of finance.
In the penultimate episode of Industry’s fourth season, “Points of Emphasis,” Harper and Yas run through the gamut of human emotions. They begin the episode as business adversaries, hurling insults at one another, and end the episode as friends dancing till dawn in a perfect girl’s night out, sealed with a kiss—a fact that makes both actors giggle, recalling the shoot. For Abela, the club scene was both sentimental and nostalgic. “It felt like season one of Industry in that we’re just two girls dancing in a club,” she says. “It felt like that time in Berlin in season two, or all the season one stuff with Robert. It really felt like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the show that we set out to make.’”
But before they can get to that point, the frenemies have to hash it out. “I really resented you for being a breathing example of how I was less than,” Harper says to Yasmin, over drinks at a pub. “And I choose to love you for being a breathing example for how I can be more,” Yasmin responds. That conversation was “the most honest and vulnerable conversation that they ever have” in Myha’la’s opinion. “They both ask for each other’s comfort in a way that there’s no hidden agenda, there’s no nothing,” she continues. “It’s pure, platonic need for comforting each other.”
Many important characters have come and gone from the Industry universe—Gus (David Jonsson), Robert (Harry Lawtey), and most recently Harper’s mentor Eric Tao, played by Ken Leung. But throughout all the shifts and changes, Harper and Yasmin’s friendship—flawed though it may be—has served as the anchor of the buzzy HBO series. Below, Marisa Abela and Myha’la go deep on Yasmin and Harper’s complicated relationship, their sometimes toxic tether, and what we can expect for Industry’s season four finale.
Spoilers for Industry below.
Vanity Fair: After a season of being either separate or at odds, at the end of episode seven, we finally get to watch our girls together again, dancing at the club. What was it like filming that moment?
Myha’la: It was so special. As much as we know the audience wants our girlies together and to have their dancing at the club moment, we really wanted it too. It does feel like an accumulation of all the seasons, everything they’ve gone through together. It’s the most intimate they could possibly be—that they’ve ever been. It was also really fun. It was a very fun shoot day.
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Chris Murphy
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Warren Buffett’s Final Berkshire Bet Brings Him Back to Newspapers
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Warren Buffett closed his career with a $351 million New York Times investment, backing one of the last thriving newspaper businesses in a digital era. Daniel Suchnik/WireImage It’s only fitting that one of Warren Buffett’s final investments before retirement circles back to the business that first taught him how to make money. In the last quarter of 2025, Berkshire Hathaway bought a $351 million stake (more than 5.1 million shares) in The New York Times Company, according to a regulatory filing this week. The bet speaks to longstanding ties between the newspaper industry and Buffett, who worked as a paperboy in the 1940s.
Today, Berkshire is known for its long-term investments in insurance, energy and tech. But it was once a prominent media investor before Buffett retreated as digital advertising upended the business. But The New York Times has emerged as one of the industry’s rare success stories. The company added 450,000 new digital subscribers during the October-December quarter and lifted quarterly revenue by more than 10 percent year over year to $802 million. Last year, the company made $344 million in profit.
Buffett, 95, officially stepped down as Berkshire’s CEO at the end of 2025, handing the reins to his successor, Greg Abel. In many ways, the new stake is a nod to Buffett’s roots. As a teenager living in Washington, D.C., he woke before 5 a.m. to deliver copies of papers, including The Washington Post. His route included six senators and a Supreme Court justice. Showing early signs of the dealmaker he would become, Buffett expanded his territory, eventually delivering some 500,000 papers. The hustle was so lucrative that he filed his first federal income tax return at age 14 after earning more than $500 in 1944.
His affection for newspapers carried into his tenure at Berkshire, where he invested heavily in media companies such as The Washington Post and even established an annual newspaper-tossing contest at Berkshire’s shareholder meeting.
Warren Buffett takes part in a newspaper-throwing contest during the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in 2015. Photo by Hannes Breusted/picture alliance via Getty Images But that love affair frayed as the internet eroded newspapers’ advertising dominance. At a 2010 Berkshire conference, Buffett remarked that it “blows your mind” how quickly the business had unraveled.
He began pulling back soon after, stepping down from The Washington Post’s board in 2011. Berkshire, which was at one point the paper’s largest investor, swapped its 28 percent stake in Graham Holdings Co., the Post’s then-parent company, for a Miami television station in 2014. The move followed Jeff Bezos’ $250 million acquisition of the paper a year earlier.
By the end of the 2010s, Berkshire had exited the newspaper business entirely, selling a portfolio of 30 local publications to Lee Enterprises for $140 million in cash. The group included titles such as Buffalo News, the Omaha World-Herald and Tulsa World.
“The world was changed hugely, and it did it gradually,” Buffett said of the industry’s decline in a 2019 interview with Yahoo Finance. “It went from monopoly to franchise to competitive to… toast.” Even then, he predicted that major publishers such as The New York Times might endure. As for the rest: “They’re going to disappear.”
The New York Times has indeed thrived, in part thanks to an aggressive expansion into games, recipes and video. Others have struggled. Under Bezos’ ownership, The Washington Post has wrestled with declining advertising revenue and subscriptions. These troubles came to a head earlier this month, when roughly one-third of the newsroom was laid off, with cuts hitting sports, books, international and metro coverage particularly hard. The Los Angeles Times, owned by biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, has faced similar turbulence, including a newsroom reduction of more than 20 percent in 2024.
Buffett’s vote of confidence has further buoyed The New York Times. Its stock surged to an all-time high this week after Berkshire disclosed its stake, capping a 12-month run in which shares climbed 57 percent.
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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How inKind CEO Johann Moonesinghe Is Trying to Fix the Restaurant Business
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Johann Moonesinghe built inKind to finance restaurants with dining credits instead of debt, reshaping how capital flows into food and drink. Courtesy inKind Restaurants are a notoriously tough and thankless business. Even the good ones can be financially fragile. That’s why it’s almost unheard of for venture capitalists to back them. But inKind, a platform that writes checks ranging from $100,000 to $10 million to thousands of restaurants, comes close. Its founder and CEO, Johann Moonesinghe, believes he has found a formula that lets everyone win: investors, restaurant owners and customers alike.
inKind operates an app that functions like a ClassPass for restaurants and bars. It sells dining credits that can be used at thousands of restaurants on the platform—plus a 20 percent reward that can be redeemed on a future visit. The appeal for diners is obvious.
Behind the scenes, however, the model is more unusual. inKind raises money from investors and uses those funds to finance individual restaurants. Instead of collecting interest or betting on a massive exit years down the road, inKind takes a share of a restaurant’s future revenue in the form of dining credits—often heavily discounted—which it then sells for a profit.
For example, inKind might give a restaurant $1 million in cash in exchange for $2 million in dining credits, then sell those credits for $1.5 million to app users. For inKind, the biggest risk is how long a restaurant stays in business. If it buys two years’ worth of credits but the restaurant closes after six months, inKind theoretically loses money. That risk is partly mitigated by having thousands of restaurants on the platform, but if closures were to happen at scale, the damage could be serious.
“In the first year, I lost 50 percent of the money that I funded to restaurants because I didn’t know how much credit to buy,” Moonesinghe told Observer. “I bought $100,000 in donut credits from some donut place in Michigan. It was impossible to sell it. So it took us years and years to get better at underwriting and building the consumer base to sell the credit.”
For restaurants, the math is more complicated. Moonesinghe argues that because the cost of food is typically only 20 to 30 percent of the menu price, restaurants can still make a profit by selling credits to inKind at half the menu price. Of course, food isn’t a restaurant’s only expense. The real question is whether a restaurant can cover its remaining costs through smart management or enough revenue from non-inKind customers.
“We really wanted to create a business model where every stakeholder wins,” said Moonesinghe, who owns four restaurants between Austin, Scottsdale and Las Vegas. “If I had opened my restaurants in the traditional way, I wouldn’t be making any money on those restaurants today. All of that money would be going back to pay my investor.”
To date, inKind has provided more than $600 million in funding to over 6,000 restaurants across the U.S. The company recently raised another $450 million from investors and is aiming to add more than 10,000 restaurants to the platform this year.
The latest funding round was led by Magnetar Capital. Participants included notable names such as Jay-Z’s investment firm MarcyPen Capital Ventures, former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, all four members of the band Metallica and more than a dozen restaurant owners.
The overwhelming investor interest marks a sharp reversal from inKind’s early years, when Moonesinghe largely funded the company with his own money and struggled to attract outside capital. He launched inKind in 2016 in Austin with his husband Andrew Harris, his late brother Rajan Moonesinghe and product designer Marcus Triest. Moonesinghe said the company’s early days were so capital-intensive that he and his husband cashed out their home and retirement accounts to keep it alive.
“Venture investors hated our business because we’re so balance sheet heavy, we require so much money to give the restaurants,” he said. “And the debt partners didn’t want to lend us, because they’re like, restaurants are the most risky.”
Now, Moonesinghe says fundraising is entirely relationship-driven, and he’s highly selective about whose money he takes. MarcyPen—the investment vehicle formed from a merger between Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners and the investment arm of Pendulum Holdings, founded by former Barack Obama adviser Robbie Robinson—was the first institutional investor inKind brought on.
“These guys really understand us. They understand the brand we’re trying to build. They’re great investors and super well-connected. They love wine, I love wine. So we ended up creating a relationship,” Moonesinghe said.
Because of this relationship-based fundraising approach, inKind’s founders still own more than 75 percent of the company. “This allows us to take a really, really long-term approach. That’s our biggest asset,” Moonesinghe said. “We don’t need an exit. We don’t need to quickly get out of deals. For us, if we can help the restaurants do well and make money for their owners, even if a deal is taking us longer to sell their credit, that’s okay.”
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Sissi Cao
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How has the Somali community shaped the workforce in Minnesota?
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The Feeding Our Future fraud case made national headlines and spurred a surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Minnesota.
Prosecutors say fraudsters lied, taking at least $250 million, but feeding very few kids.
A jury convicted Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock in the pandemic fraud scheme. Many of the others charged or convicted were Somali, which prompted a sharp response from President Trump.
“I don’t want them in our country. Some say that’s not politically correct. I don’t care,” Mr. Trump said.
In Minnesota, the American and Somali flags go hand in hand. So do the stories.
Dr. Mohamed M. Ali was born in Somalia. He now runs a dental practice in south Minneapolis. WCCO spoke with him when he opened the practice.
“A lot of our patients, they see us not as Somali but as dentists, regardless of where we come from,” Ali said.
Mariam Mohamed is the owner of a million-dollar company that makes Somali pasties called sambusas. The company is called HOYO.
“My dream is to hire more people, and the more that we do that, and the more people we hire, the more we are contributing to the lives of people and that’s my dream,” Mohamed said.
Sabrin Kahlif finished high school and the first half of college at the same time.
“You’ve always been eyes on the prize, and what is the prize?” WCCO asked Kahlif.
“The prize is to become a doctor and actually go back to Somalia to help my community,” he said.
A community that has been the focus of a large immigration crackdown. A community that has over 108,000 people in Minnesota, just about 2% of the state’s population.
“About 44% of those children are under 17, which is an interesting statistic. A younger population,” Bruce Corrie, an economist who studies local immigrant populations, said.
WCCO asked Corrie what the group’s contribution has been to the workforce.
“Somalis are concentrated in certain sectors. Healthcare, transportation, retail. They are also very entrepreneurial, and as we go to places like the Karmel Mall, you see so many entrepreneurs and some own multiple businesses,” he said.
Corrie added that in three generations in Minnesota, there’s a rising number of professionals. And they spend $1 billion a year.
“They are contributing, they continue to contribute — alignment with the American dream,” he said.
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Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
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Cullen Capital Management LLC Sells 40,578 Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. $JPM
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Cullen Capital Management LLC lessened its stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) by 3.9% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,006,665 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 40,578 shares during the quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. comprises about 3.5% of Cullen Capital Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its biggest position. Cullen Capital Management LLC’s holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. were worth $317,532,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Harbor Asset Planning Inc. acquired a new position in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Mizuho Securities Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 450.0% in the 2nd quarter. Mizuho Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 110 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 90 shares during the period. Mountain Hill Investment Partners Corp. acquired a new position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the 3rd quarter valued at $32,000. Family Legacy Financial Solutions LLC increased its position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 92.6% during the 3rd quarter. Family Legacy Financial Solutions LLC now owns 104 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Finally, Clarity Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 87.1% during the second quarter. Clarity Asset Management Inc. now owns 217 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $63,000 after buying an additional 101 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.55% of the company’s stock.
Insider Activity at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
In related news, CFO Jeremy Barnum sold 2,893 shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. stock in a transaction on Friday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.79, for a total transaction of $904,901.47. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 26,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,350,241.84. This trade represents a 9.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Jennifer Piepszak sold 8,571 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.79, for a total transaction of $2,680,923.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 71,027 shares in the company, valued at approximately $22,216,535.33. The trade was a 10.77% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 14,868 shares of company stock worth $4,650,596 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Stock Performance
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. stock opened at $302.62 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $823.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.12, a P/E/G ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 1.07. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a twelve month low of $202.16 and a twelve month high of $337.25. The company’s fifty day moving average is $315.53 and its 200 day moving average is $307.56. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 13th. The financial services provider reported $5.23 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.93 by $0.30. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a return on equity of 17.16% and a net margin of 20.35%.The firm had revenue of $45.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $45.98 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $4.81 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will post 18.1 EPS for the current year.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Announces Dividend
The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, January 31st. Investors of record on Tuesday, January 6th were paid a $1.50 dividend. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, January 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s payout ratio is currently 29.99%.
Trending Headlines about JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Here are the key news stories impacting JPMorgan Chase & Co. this week:
Analyst Ratings Changes
Several research firms recently commented on JPM. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, January 18th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Truist Financial set a $334.00 price target on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird raised JPMorgan Chase & Co. from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $280.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b+)” rating on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a report on Monday, December 22nd. Fourteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and thirteen have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $340.18.
Read Our Latest Stock Report on JPM
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Profile
JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) is a diversified global financial services firm headquartered in New York City. The company provides a wide range of banking and financial products and services to consumers, small businesses, corporations, governments and institutional investors worldwide. Its operations span retail banking, commercial lending, investment banking, asset management, payments and card services, and treasury and securities services.
The firm’s principal business activities are organized across several core lines: Consumer & Community Banking, which offers deposit accounts, mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and branch and digital banking under the Chase brand; Corporate & Investment Banking, which provides capital markets, advisory, underwriting, trading and risk management services; Commercial Banking, delivering lending, treasury and capital solutions to middle-market and corporate clients; and Asset & Wealth Management, which offers investment management, private banking and retirement services to institutions and high-net-worth individuals.
Further Reading
Want to see what other hedge funds are holding JPM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM – Free Report).
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ABMN Staff
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Stocks Settle Slightly Higher as Bond Yields Fall
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The S&P 500 Index ($SPX) (SPY) on Friday closed up +0.05%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DOWI) (DIA) closed up +0.10%, and the Nasdaq 100 Index ($IUXX) (QQQ) closed up +0.18%. March E-mini S&P futures (ESH26) rose +0.03%, and March E-mini Nasdaq futures (NQH26) rose +0.14%.
Stock indexes recovered from early losses on Friday and settled higher. Falling bond yields were bullish for stocks on Friday after US January consumer prices rose less than expected, which may prompt the Fed to keep cutting interest rates. The 10-year T-note yield fell to a 2.25-month low of 4.05% on the tame inflation news.
Also, a recovery in software stocks was supportive of the overall market. However, metal companies retreated on reports that the Trump administration is working to narrow its tariffs on steel and aluminum products.
Stocks initially moved lower today, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 posting 1-week lows. Worries over AI weighed on stocks and dampened market sentiment. Concerns have surfaced that the latest tools released by Google, Anthropic, and other AI startups are already good enough to disrupt many sectors of the economy, including finance, logistics, software, and trucking.
US Jan CPI rose +2.4% y/y, weaker than expectations of +2.5% y/y and the smallest pace of increase in 7 months. Jan core CPI rose +2.5% y/y, right on expectations and the smallest pace of increase in 4.75 years.
Q4 earnings season is in full swing, as more than two-thirds of the S&P 500 companies have reported earnings results. Earnings have been a positive factor for stocks, with 76% of the 371 S&P 500 companies that have reported beating expectations. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, S&P earnings growth is expected to climb by +8.4% in Q4, marking the tenth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Excluding the Magnificent Seven megacap technology stocks, Q4 earnings are expected to increase by +4.6%.
The markets are discounting a 10% chance for a -25 bp rate cut at the next policy meeting on March 17-18.
Overseas stock markets settled lower on Friday. The Euro Stoxx 50 closed down by -0.43%. China’s Shanghai Composite closed down -1.26%. Japan’s Nikkei Stock 225 fell closed down -1.21%.
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Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Purchases 23,833 Shares of The Progressive Corporation $PGR
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Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund grew its holdings in shares of The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR – Free Report) by 30.2% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 102,778 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after buying an additional 23,833 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Progressive were worth $25,381,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. CVA Family Office LLC raised its position in Progressive by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. CVA Family Office LLC now owns 1,053 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $281,000 after buying an additional 42 shares during the last quarter. Bell Investment Advisors Inc grew its stake in shares of Progressive by 20.8% in the 2nd quarter. Bell Investment Advisors Inc now owns 256 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $68,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares in the last quarter. Maia Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Progressive by 5.4% in the second quarter. Maia Wealth LLC now owns 857 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $229,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Trail Ridge Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Progressive by 1.6% during the second quarter. Trail Ridge Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,906 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $775,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Selective Wealth Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Progressive by 2.1% during the third quarter. Selective Wealth Management Inc. now owns 2,207 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $538,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. 85.34% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
Several research firms have commented on PGR. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Progressive from $303.00 to $275.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 7th. UBS Group set a $226.00 price objective on Progressive in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their target price on Progressive from $252.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $216.00 price target on shares of Progressive in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Evercore decreased their price objective on shares of Progressive from $250.00 to $237.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $250.35.
Check Out Our Latest Analysis on PGR
Progressive Price Performance
PGR opened at $208.40 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $215.77 and a 200-day moving average price of $228.41. The Progressive Corporation has a twelve month low of $197.92 and a twelve month high of $292.99. The company has a quick ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The company has a market capitalization of $122.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.83, a PEG ratio of 7.09 and a beta of 0.32.
Progressive Announces Dividend
The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 2nd were issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a $0.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 2nd. Progressive’s payout ratio is presently 2.08%.
Insider Buying and Selling
In other news, CFO John P. Sauerland sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $228.48, for a total value of $1,142,400.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 223,024 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,956,523.52. This represents a 2.19% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Steven Broz sold 1,344 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $224.80, for a total transaction of $302,131.20. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 26,354 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,924,379.20. This represents a 4.85% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 12,443 shares of company stock valued at $2,723,061. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.
Progressive Company Profile
Progressive Corporation is a large U.S.-based property and casualty insurer that primarily underwrites personal auto insurance along with a broad suite of related products. Its offerings include coverage for private passenger automobiles, commercial auto fleets, motorcycles, boats and recreational vehicles, as well as homeowners, renters, umbrella and other specialty P&C products. Progressive also provides claims handling, risk management and related services to individual and commercial policyholders.
The company distributes its products through a mix of direct channels—online and by phone—and an extensive independent agent network.
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ABMN Staff
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Goldman Sachs’ Information Chief Marco Argenti Deepens A.I. Push with Anthropic
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Marco Argenti says A.I. agents are becoming “digital co-workers” across Goldman’s operations. Courtesy Goldman Sachs Marco Argenti, chief information officer at Goldman Sachs, is leading one of Wall Street’s most aggressive integrations of A.I. He has made a name for himself as an early adoptor of A.I. in finance through initiatives like the GS AI Assistant platform, which is offered to Goldman Sachs employees for tasks such as coding and translation, and last year’s pilot of A.I. software engineer Devin, made by Cognition Labs. More recently, the investment bank has been collaborating with Anthropic, using its Claude model primarily in its accounting and compliance departments, Argenti said in an interview with CNBC published today (Feb. 6).
The goal is to speed up tasks that involve massive amounts of data without investing in more manpower. “Think of it as a digital co-worker for many of the professions within the firm that are scaled, complex and very process-intensive,” Argenti said.
Argenti spent much of his career in the tech and cloud computing industries before joining Goldman Sachs in 2019. He previously served as vice president of technology at Amazon Web Services, overseeing serverless computing and virtual reality. Earlier in his career, he led developer experiences at Nokia.
Anthropic is known for its A.I. coding assistant, which is widely used by engineers. Goldman Sachs quickly realized that the traits that make a good coder—such as applying logic and working with large volumes of complex data—could be applied to tasks across accounting and compliance, Argenti said. Outside those departments, Claude agents could also be used for employee surveillance and creating investment banking pitchbooks for clients, he revealed.
Goldman Sachs and Anthropic did not respond to requests from Observer to comment on those efforts.
A collaboration with Goldman Sachs is the latest win for Anthropic, which has positioned itself as an enterprise-focused A.I. company. Earlier this week, the startup’s release of coworking software with various industry plug-ins triggered a panic selloff in enterprise software stocks, as investors worried such tools could make existing products obsolete.
Other Wall Street giants are also embracing A.I. agents. JPMorgan Chase currently has more than 500 A.I. use cases, ranging from customer service to idea generation and marketing, and draws upon models from both Anthropic and OpenAI to power its internal LLM Suite program. Morgan Stanley was an early client of OpenAI, using its tech to distill meeting notes, aid financial research and boost coding productivity.
A.I.’s use in financial services has grown each year since 2022, according to a recent Nvidia survey, in which 100 percent of industry professionals said A.I. spending will either stay the same or increase in 2026. A.I. agents, in particular, are being used or assessed by 42 percent of respondents. Top workflows include knowledge management and retrieval, internal process optimization and customer support automation.
Such widespread adoption will inevitably lead to industry-wide labor shifts. A.I. leaders and studies alike have warned that the technology could reshape or eliminate entry-level white-collar roles. It’s unclear how the use of A.I. would affect Goldman Sachs’ employees. But Argenti conceded that A.I.’s advancements could eliminate the need for third-party providers.
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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