Market Newsdesk

DRESHER, Pa., Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Ascensus—whose technology and expertise help millions of people save for retirement, education, and healthcare—announced that Franklin Templeton has selected Ascensus to host its Personal Retirement Path managed account services offering.

“Personalization is core to our value proposition at Franklin Templeton, and we believe it is the key to driving financial independence for every U.S. worker and household,” said Yaqub Ahmed, Head of Retirement, Insurance & 529 – U.S. at Franklin Templeton. “Through our partnership with Ascensus, we look forward to empowering advisors with the resources needed to create a path toward financial well-being at all stages of a participant’s savings journey.”

Personal Retirement Path managed accounts deliver personalized portfolio management to help individual investors reach specific goals. Its proprietary Goals Optimization Engine (GOE™), which is based on award-winning academic research, makes personalization at scale a reality. The offering is backed by Franklin Templeton’s strong commitment to servicing the retirement industry, along with its deep multi-asset investment expertise within Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions.

Ascensus announced the expansion of its managed account services—which are supported by its purpose-built technology and open-architecture platform with no proprietary investment requirements—in September 2020. Since then, it has continued to develop its infrastructure to give institutional partners and advisors more choices that can enable them to deliver personalized account management services to their clients and savers. The addition of Franklin Templeton’s Personal Retirement Path is another example of Ascensus’ commitment to offer more savings options that can potentially drive better retirement outcomes.

“As the appetite for saver personalization continues to grow, Ascensus has positioned itself to support an enhanced level of choice via our open-architecture approach,” said Jason Crane, Ascensus’ head of retirement distribution. “In Franklin Templeton, we’re working with a partner that shares our passion for helping savers achieve their retirement goals; we’re extremely proud to add Personal Retirement Path to our array of managed account services.”  

“The flexibility of Ascensus’ managed account services reflects our independent business model,” adds Crane. “We’ll continue to work with partners that complement our business model, philosophy, and values while supporting unique investment management approaches and expanding relationships.”

About Franklin Templeton 
Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN], is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 165 countries. Through its specialist investment managers, the company brings extensive capabilities in equity, fixed income, multi-asset solutions and alternatives. With offices in more than 30 countries and approximately 1,300 investment professionals, the California-based company has 75 years of investment experience and over $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2021. For more information, please visit franklintempleton.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

About Ascensus
Ascensus helps millions of people save for what matters—retirement, education, and healthcare. Through co-branded, private-labeled, and other governmental partnerships, our technology, market insights, and business knowledge enhance the growth and success of our partners, their clients, and savers. Ascensus is the largest independent recordkeeping services provider, third-party administrator, and government savings facilitator in the United States. For more information, visit ascensus.com.

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SOURCE Ascensus

BLOOMFIELD, Conn., Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Cigna Corporation earned a perfect 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Corporate Equality Index™ (CEI), making it one of the Best Places to Work for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) Equality. This is the tenth year in a row that Cigna has earned this honor, reflecting the company’s continued commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.

“Our company is stronger when our employees bring their whole selves to work. This is why we are so intentional about cultivating a culture where we value and support each other for who we are,” said Susan Stith, vice president of diversity, equity, inclusion, and corporate and employee giving at Cigna, and executive director of the Cigna Foundation. “This recognition is an important validation of our work so far, and it motivates us to continue pushing forward every day.”

The results of the 2022 CEI showcase how companies are promoting LGBTQ+-friendly workplace policies and actions both domestically and globally. Key criteria include:

• Non-discrimination policies across business entities; 
• Equitable benefits for LGBTQ+ workers and their families; 
• Supporting an inclusive culture; and,
• Corporate social responsibility. 

“When the Human Rights Campaign Foundation created the Corporate Equality Index 20 years ago, we dreamed that LGBTQ+ workers—from the factory floor to corporate headquarters, in big cities and small towns—could have access to the policies and benefits needed to thrive and live life authentically,” said Jay Brown, Human Rights Campaign Senior Vice President of Programs, Research and Training. “We are proud that the Corporate Equality Index paved the way to that reality for countless LGBTQ+ workers in America and abroad. But there is still more to do, which is why we are raising the bar yet again to create more equitable workplaces and a better tomorrow for LGBTQ+ workers everywhere. Congratulations to Cigna for achieving the title of ‘best places to work for LGBTQ+ equality’ and working to advance inclusion in the workplace.”

Read more about Cigna’s commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and equality.

About Cigna
Cigna Corporation is a global health service company dedicated to improving the health, well-being and peace of mind of those we serve. Cigna delivers choice, predictability, affordability and access to quality care through integrated capabilities and connected, personalized solutions that advance whole person health. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Evernorth companies or their affiliates and Express Scripts companies or their affiliates. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits and other related products. Cigna maintains sales capability in over 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has over 190 million customer relationships around the world. To learn more about Cigna®, including links to follow us on Facebook or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com.

Media Contact

Meaghan MacDonald

1 (860) 840-1212
[email protected]

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SOURCE Cigna

CHICAGO, Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced that SOFR futures volume surpassed 1 million contracts for the first time, reaching a new, single-day trading volume record of 1,308,621 contracts and setting a new open interest (OI) record of 2,804,640 contracts on January 26.

“These trading milestones reflect that market participants are increasingly turning to CME Group’s deeply liquid SOFR futures and options to manage their risk,” said Agha Mirza, CME Group Global Head of Rates and OTC Products. “Since the start of 2022, liquidity has continued to shift to our SOFR-based derivatives at an accelerated pace, with SOFR futures open interest now equivalent to nearly 25% of all Eurodollar futures open interest.”  

To date in January 2022, SOFR futures average daily volume (ADV) has grown to 664,603 contracts per day, up from nearly 290,000 contracts per day on average during December 2021. At the same time, Eurodollar and SOFR futures and options ADV at CME Group has grown to more than 4.6 million contracts a day, with the majority of these futures contracts linked to each other through the ISDA spread.

The prior records for SOFR futures daily volume and OI were 888,370 contracts traded on January 24 and 2,721,395 contracts OI on January 25 respectively.

SOFR futures are listed with and subject to the rules of CME. For more information on SOFR futures, please visit www.cmegroup.com/sofr.  

As the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

CME-G  

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SOURCE CME Group

CALGARY, AB, Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ – The Board of Directors of Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (TSX: CP) (NYSE: CP) today declared a quarterly dividend of $0.19 per share on the outstanding Common Shares.

The dividend is payable on April 25, 2022 to holders of record at the close of business on March 25, 2022, and is an “eligible” dividend for purposes of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and any similar provincial/territorial legislation.

About Canadian Pacific
Canadian Pacific is a transcontinental railway in Canada and the United States with direct links to major ports on the west and east coasts. CP provides North American customers a competitive rail service with access to key markets in every corner of the globe. CP is growing with its customers, offering a suite of freight transportation services, logistics solutions and supply chain expertise. Visit cpr.ca to see the rail advantages of CP. CP-IR

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SOURCE Canadian Pacific

SALEM, N.H.
, Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Standex International Corporation (NYSE: SXI) today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.26 per share which is payable February 25, 2022, to shareholders of record on February 11, 2022. 

The dividend is the Company’s 230^th consecutive quarterly cash dividend. Standex has paid dividends each quarter since it became a public corporation in November 1964.

About Standex
Standex International Corporation is a global multi-industry manufacturer in five broad business segments: Electronics, Engraving, Scientific, Engineering Technologies and Specialty Solutions with operations in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, India and China.  For additional information, visit the Company’s website at www.standex.com.

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SOURCE Standex International Corporation

NORFOLK, Va., Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Affiliates of Harbor Group International, LLC (“HGI”), a privately owned international real estate investment and management firm, today announced the acquisition of an 8-asset portfolio of workforce housing communities in North Carolina’s Research Triangle for $475 million. The Newmark team of Jason Kon, Henry Stimler and Bill Weber represented the seller, Dasmen Residential LLC, and facilitated the debt for the acquisition.

Located throughout the Research Triangle, an area known for its research universities and STEM companies, the portfolio comprises 2,356 units and features four communities in Durham, three communities in Raleigh and one community in Charlotte. HGI plans to invest approximately $21.9 million across the properties to renovate 25% of the interior units. Harbor Group Management Company, the property management arm of HGI, will assume management of the entire portfolio.

“The Research Triangle is an important target market for HGI as we seek to acquire well-located communities in high-growth markets,” said Richard Litton, HGI. “As the area’s high-paying STEM jobs continue to attract new residents, we see opportunity to leverage our expertise in owning and operating similar communities in the region to generate rent growth amid increasing demand for housing.”

“We are proud that we were able to bring these two great firms together to do this unique and large off-market transaction. Dasmen entrusted the Newmark team to execute this deal in a very quiet and select manner, culminating in a great outcome for both parties,” said Kon.

The Raleigh-Durham properties within the portfolio have direct access to Research Triangle Park, placing residents in proximity to over 22.5 million square feet of office and lab space and more than 275 businesses. Since 2020, more than 9,000 jobs have been created in the Research Triangle area, driven by the expansion of technology and life science companies, with major employers including Bayer Crop Science, Cisco, Biogen and IBM. Apple’s first East Coast campus is currently under development in Research Triangle Park, and is projected to bring an additional 3,000 jobs to the area.

HGI is an active investor in the southeastern U.S. markets. With the addition of the Research Triangle portfolio, the firm currently owns and manages nearly 5,000 apartment units in North Carolina.

About Harbor Group International
Harbor Group International, LLC, and its affiliates control an investment portfolio of $18 billion including 4.9 million square feet of commercial space throughout the United States and the United Kingdom and 60,000 apartment units in the United States. In addition to its corporate headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, HGI maintains offices in New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Tel Aviv.

About Dasmen Residential LLC
Dasmen Residential LLC is a privately held real estate investment and management firm that owns and operates multi-family properties in major cities throughout the United States. We make opportunistic investments in growth markets and employ a range of strategies to create value and sustain long term asset appreciation. 

About Newmark
Newmark Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMRK), together with its subsidiaries (“Newmark”), is a world leader in commercial real estate, seamlessly powering every phase of the property life cycle. Newmark’s comprehensive suite of services and products is uniquely tailored to each client, from owners to occupiers, investors to founders, and startups to blue-chip companies. Combining the platform’s global reach with market intelligence in both established and emerging property markets, Newmark provides superior service to clients across the industry spectrum. Newmark generated revenues in excess of $2.5 billion for the trailing twelve months ending September 30, 2021. Newmark’s company-owned offices, together with its business partners, operate from over 160 offices with approximately 6,200 professionals around the world. To learn more, visit nmrk.com or follow @newmark. 

Media Contacts:
Harbor Group International
Morgan McGinnis
[email protected] 
323.500.0939

Newmark
Brandon Levesque
[email protected]
212.655.0614

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SOURCE Harbor Group International, LLC

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), America’s largest grocery retailer, today announced it will offer more Americans delivery through the addition of a spoke facility in Louisville, Kentucky powered by the Ocado Group (LSE: OCDO) and combining vertical integration, machine learning, and robotics to provide an affordable, friendly, and fast fresh food delivery service as part of the company’s seamless ecosystem.

“We’re proud to expand the Kroger fulfillment network to Louisville,” said Gabriel Arreaga, Kroger’s senior vice president and chief supply chain officer. “The new service is an innovative addition to the expanding digital shopping experience available to Kroger customers. The network’s delivery spoke facility will provide unmatched customer service and improve access to fresh food in areas eager for the variety and value offered by Kroger direct to their homes.”

“I want to thank leaders at Kroger not only for this announcement, but also for their continued commitment to the commonwealth over many years,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said. “Kroger has long been a vital part of Kentucky’s growing economy, and this new location helps ensure that will continue to be the case for years to come. I’m grateful for the company’s expanding presence in our state.”

The 50,000-square-foot spoke facility located on Robards Lane in Louisville will collaborate with the hub in Monroe, Ohio and serve as a cross-dock to connect customers with fresh food. The facility is expected to become operational later this year and will employ up to 161 full-time associates.

Louisville Mayor, Greg Fischer, said of this new investment, “Today’s announcement is the latest way that Kroger is showing its commitment to the Louisville market. Kroger has long been a valued partner in our community, providing jobs, reinvesting in our city through continued growth, and giving back through its charity. Thank you to the Kroger team!”

Kroger Delivery Explained
The expansion in Louisville represents an extension of a partnership between Kroger and Ocado, a world leader in technology for grocery e-commerce. In 2018, the companies announced a collaboration to establish a delivery network that combines artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and automation in a bold new way, bringing first-of-its-kind technology to America. Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said Kroger Delivery “underpins the permanent shift in grocery consumer behavior and elevates our position as one of America’s leading e-commerce companies.” Through the delivery network, the company now serves customers in Florida, as an example, without traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

The delivery network relies on highly automated fulfillment centers. At the “hub” sites, more than 1,000 bots whizz around giant 3D grids, orchestrated by proprietary air-traffic control systems in the unlicensed spectrum. The grid, known as The Hive, contains totes with products and ready-to-deliver customer orders.

As customers’ orders near their delivery times, the bots retrieve products from The Hive and are presented at pick stations for items to be sorted for delivery, a process governed by algorithms that ensures items are intelligently packed. For example, fragile items are placed on top, bags are evenly weighted, and each order is optimized to fit into the lowest number of bags, reducing plastic use.

After being packed, groceries are loaded into a temperature-controlled delivery van, which can store up to 20 orders. Powerful machine learning algorithms optimize delivery routes, considering factors such as road conditions and optimal fuel efficiency. Vans may travel up to 90 miles with orders from the hub and spoke facilities to make deliveries. Associates at the spoke facility will deliver orders within their service area, adding ZIP codes as demand grows.

Kroger unveiled the Monroe customer fulfillment center in April of 2021, its first, followed by another in Groveland, FL and Forest Park, GA (Atlanta). The fulfillment network plans additional customer fulfillment centers in California, Dallas, TX, Frederick, MD, Phoenix, AZ, Pleasant Prairie, WI, Romulus, MI (Detroit), as well as South Florida and the Northeast.

Media Assets
To download Kroger Delivery photography and video, visit here.

About Kroger
At The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), we are Fresh for Everyone™ and dedicated to our Purpose: To Feed the Human Spirit®. We are, across our family of companies, nearly half a million associates who serve over 11 million customers daily through a seamless shopping experience under a variety of banner names. We are committed to creating #ZeroHungerZeroWaste communities by 2025. To learn more about us, visit our newsroom and investor relations site.

About Ocado Group
Ocado Group is a UK based technology company admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange (Ticker OCDO). It provides end-to-end online grocery fulfilment solutions to some of the world’s largest grocery retailers and holds a 50% share of Ocado Retail Ltd in the UK in a Joint Venture with Marks & Spencer. Ocado has spent two decades innovating for grocery online, investing in a wide technology estate that includes robotics, AI & machine learning, simulation, forecasting, and edge intelligence.

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SOURCE The Kroger Co.

NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Moore Kuehn, PLLC, a securities law firm located on Wall Street, is investigating potential claims involving directors and officers regarding possible breaches of fiduciary duties related to whether insiders caused their companies to make false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose, among other things, that:

• 
  Corcept Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CORT)

  
  (1) that the company had improperly paid doctors to promote its drug Korlym; (2) that the company aggressively promoted Korlym for off-label uses; (3) that the company’s sole specialty pharmacy was a related party; (4) that the company artificially inflated its revenue and sales using illicit sales practices through a related party; and (5) that such practices are reasonably likely to lead to regulatory scrutiny.  U.S. District Court Judge Lucy H. Koh denied defendants’ motion to dismiss the class action complaint, paving the way for litigation to proceed against Corcept and certain insider defendants.

• 
  Credit Acceptance Corporation (NASDAQ: CACC)

  
  (1) the Company was topping off the pools of loans that they packaged and securitized with higher-risk loans; (2) Credit Acceptance was making high-interest subprime auto loans to borrowers that the Company knew borrowers would be unable to repay; (3) the borrowers were subject to hidden finance charges, resulting in loans exceeding the usury rate ceiling mandated by state law; and (4) Credit Acceptance took excessive and illegal measures to collect debt from defaulted borrowers.  On September 1, 2021, the Company announced that it agreed to pay over $27 million to settle litigation brought against it by the Massachusetts Attorney General.

If you own CORT or CACC please contact Justin Kuehn, Esq. by email at  [email protected] or telephone at (212) 709-8245.  There is no cost to you.  Moore Kuehn is a New York-based law firm with attorneys representing investors and consumers. Please visit http://www.moorekuehn.com/practice/new-york-shareholder-derivative-litigation/

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Moore Kuehn, PLLC
Justin Kuehn, Esq.
30 Wall Street, 8^th Floor
New York, New York 10005
[email protected] 
(212) 709-8245

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SOURCE Moore Kuehn, PLLC