Business

A trio of executives — including a former Baltimore Ravens player — are teaming up to build a venture capital fund with a business model tailor-made for an era when capital is harder and harder to find. The Tiger Fund is the creation of former Ravens player and Super Bowl champion Kyle Richardson, Patrick McQuown, Towson University’s executive director of entrepreneurship, and venture capitalist Alfred Ko of the StepStone Group, a fund with $139 billion of assets under management. The group plans to raise at least $2 million through institutional and retail investors before investing any money.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) said Friday that one of the biggest challenges that manufacturers are facing in Montgomery County and elsewhere in the state is a shortage of skilled workers—an issue that his administration is focused on tackling. “Right now, in the state of Maryland, there are two available jobs for every single person filing for unemployment,” Moore said.

A small Anne Arundel County community is the best market for first-time homebuyers in Greater Baltimore, according to a new analysis by Realtor.com. Riviera Beach, a small census-designated place south of Baltimore, ranks high on the site’s evaluation of friendly markets in the region. Riviera Beach’s median home prices have stayed manageable compared to those in the region and across the country. The median home price in the community between December 2022 and November 2023 was $264,079, well below Greater Baltimore’s median price of $360,172.

Corporate America has a message for Wall Street: It’s serious about cutting costs this year. From toy and cosmetics makers to office software sellers, executives across sectors have announced layoffs and other plans to slash expenses — even at some companies that are turning a profit. Barbie maker Mattel, PayPal, Cisco,
Nike, Estée Lauder and Levi Strauss are just a few of the firms that have cut jobs in recent weeks.

Work is underway on the first phase of a $96 million development in Park Heights as a push to redefine the long-ignored North Baltimore community gains momentum. The 100-unit senior housing tower now under construction is among a wave of new life in the area north of Pimlico Race Course that has been plagued with chronic vacancies, blight, poverty and violent crime.

Baltimore will make the case for why international businesses should invest in our city during the inaugural Baltimore Region Investment Summit on June 27, the Greater Baltimore Committee announced Thursday. The local event will be a spinoff of the United States Department of Commerce’s SelectUSA Investment Summit, a foreign direct investment conference that aims to attract international businesses to invest in U.S. growth markets.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday that the league is committed to getting the Orioles’ sale to Baltimore native David Rubenstein closed as quickly as possible. “We’re working on the internal processes that need to be completed before the transaction can close,” Manfred said in his annual start-of-spring-training availability. “There’s lots of documents that need to be reviewed and whatnot to make sure they are in accordance with our rules.”

A Baltimore accounting firm is urging cannabis companies to prepare for a change in federal law that could result in millions of dollars in tax refunds. Vadim Ronzhes, tax director at Towson-based Rosen, Sapperstein & Friedlander, is advising cannabis firms across the state to file a protective claim with the IRS because the federal government faces several legal actions and new regulations that could change how the nascent industry is taxed.