Brian Cornell turned Target into a $100 billion company. Shareholders thanked him by voting against him at historic levels. Nothing says gratitude like a performance review conducted by people who bought the stock three weeks ago because they liked the font on a cereal box.
The man built an empire. The empire's owners decided the empire could use new management. Corporate governance works exactly like this: spend decades growing a retailer from mid-tier to massive, watch it stumble for eighteen months, get fired by a guy whose entire investment thesis was "my wife shops there."
Cornell's reward for creating tens of billions in market value? The lowest investor support ever recorded for his position. Not low. Not concerning. The lowest. He could've sat in his office doing absolutely nothing and probably would've polled better. At least then shareholders couldn't point to specific decisions they hated.
The technical analysis here is bulletproof. Stock goes up, chair is genius. Stock goes down, chair is failure. Never mind that he presided over one of the most successful retail transformations in modern history. Never mind that Target became a cultural fixture under his leadership. The line went the wrong direction for a few quarters. Fire him.
Retail traders love this story. They see a billionaire retailer struggling and think they've spotted something Wall Street missed. They haven't. They've spotted a company that sells groceries and home goods in a brutally competitive market during an economic slowdown. Might as well claim credit for noticing that water is wet.
Cornell probably sleeps fine. He'll either turn it around or take a golden parachute worth more than every shareholder vote combined. The people calling for his head will still be arguing about technical patterns on Reddit while he's buying his third yacht.
Turns out building a $100 billion company only matters until the quarterly report disappoints Doug from Nebraska and his twelve shares.
Photo by Sergio Martins on Unsplash
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