BizSense Beat is a weekly collaboration between VPM News and Richmond BizSense that brings you the top business stories during NPR's Morning Edition on Fridays.
Here’s a recap of the top stories for the week of June 21, 2024:
CarMax to build dealer auction center in New Kent
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Jack Jacobs
CarMax is shifting into expansion mode locally with plans for a new facility in New Kent County.
The Goochland-based Fortune 500 used car seller aims to begin construction in the coming weeks on a roughly 78,300-square-foot facility on a 44-acre site at 16931 Eltham Road in the eastern part of the county, according to a site plan filed earlier this year.
The company intends to use the facility as an auction site, where it will sell vehicles to other dealers. The location would also have repair facilities to prep vehicle to be sold on the lots of local CarMax stores. The company won’t offer on-site retail sales at the New Kent center.
Swiss humidifier maker Condair pays $55M for Chesterfield warehouse, plans to start operations next year
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Jack Jacobs
A Chesterfield warehouse that has changed ownership several times in recent years is now in the hands of a Swiss company that plans to convert the building into a manufacturing center.
Condair Group, which makes commercial humidifiers, dehumidifiers and related products, last month purchased the 400,000-square-foot Willis Commerce Center at 1410 Willis Road $54.5 million, according to Chesterfield land records.
The company is converting the building into a production center and plans to be operational there early next year, Horace Wynn, COO of Condair’s North American operations, said in an email.
Wynn said the upcoming Chesterfield facility would be the first time that Condair has planted its flag in the Richmond region.
$18M pay package makes Altria CEO region’s highest-paid public company exec
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Ianne Salvosa
Things are looking up for many of the CEOs at some of the Richmond region’s biggest companies.
A majority of the top bosses of the area’s 22 largest publicly traded companies experienced pay increases in 2023, according to a BizSense analysis of their recently filed proxy statements.
The overall group saw an average percentage increase of 14% in their total pay packages from 2022 to 2023. The average value of their total compensation last year was $5.45 million last year, down from an average $5.69 million in 2022.
Altria CEO William Gifford Jr. clinched the top of the leaderboard for 2023 for the second year in a row, with a total pay package of more than $18 million, about $2 million more than his 2022 compensation. His 2023 earnings are more than triple the average total compensation package of his peers on the list.
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