Well, fuck the mono-focus on investor happiness, really.

Investors buying stock is a large part of a company's valuation, which allows the company to borrow against that value, and use the borrowed funds to to invest in improving the company. Thereby increasing the value of the company, raising the stock price, and giving the investors a bigger return.

It's like home equity, roughly speaking. You can borrow against the amount of equity you have in your home, to make improvements, thereby raising the value of your home. (Ok, your home value is way more stable than the stock market, but the analogy is broadly applicable.)

So increasing stock value is good for business, because it keeps investors invested, and bolsters the "equity" your business has.

Target is doing something non-traditional, so investors get wiggly, because a lot of these investors are institutions that are investing people's pensions and retirement funds, in the hope of giving their customers more money to live on when they retire. So the investors' concern is warranted. "Do we leave the money in here and hope it pans out, or move it over to Blackwater, which always gives us a big return, but are a buncha assholes who kill people for a living?"

The reason investors have so much pull, is because companies have leveraged themselves so hard against their stock price. A drop in the stock price basically places them "underwater", like a homeowner who suddenly owes more money on their home than it is worth on the market.

Know why Apple has $5bn in cash stored in bank accounts around the world?

Because fuck investors, that's why.

Apple needs to be a public company, but they can't be beholden to the whims of investors, like Carl Icahn, who has been on Apple since the late 1980's, to make stupid business decisions to raise stock value.

So Apple keeps this big huge stick in the closet - $5bn in cash - so they can weather any problem, and still give the finger to the investors. (Failures like the sapphire plant in TX that tanked.)

It's also a defensive tool. If anyone wants to acquire Apple, they have to come up with $1 to match every $1 Apple has in the bank, and then make an offer for the business that takes into account the brand value, product line, worldwide customer base, real estate, assets, etc, etc, etc.

In effect, keeping that $5bn in the back ensures that there is no dollar amount that makes sense to buy Apple - via hostile takeover, or any other method.

Bringing this back around to Target, if they can raise wages and maintain their value, the stock price will SHOOT up. This will give them a huge boost of cash to go on a massive growth campaign... just at the time all these Sears stores are closing down.

Plus they get all the feel-good publicity of raising wages and being a "good guy" employer, and maybe even move in to old communities abandoned by WalMart. Who knows? Target is a vibrant retailer in a market that is distinctly retailer unfriendly... and that's a pretty good recipe for setting up a solid monopoly. (Especially when you can steal the entire WalMart workforce because you pay better.)

It's an interesting play.

And yeah... fuck being too focused on Investors. It's worked for Apple, despite all of Icahn's efforts, Apple has won.