Month: July 2016

Latest Headlines

Yum shares jump on sweetened profit forecast; UPS reportedly considering Louisville for new $65M project; and new Jack Daniel’s video is virtual reality

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 10:11 p.m.

YUM reported a big increase in second-quarter profit on a rebound in its big China unit, and raised its forecast for core operating profit growth for the full year. Shares surged 4.6% to $89.65 in extended trading on the report, which was released after markets closed.

For the period ended June 11, Yum reported earnings of $339 million, or 81 cents a share vs. $235 million, or 53 cents a share, a year ago, according to MarketWatch. Excluding costs related to the planned separation of the China business and other items, profit rose to 75 cents a share vs. 69 cents.

Revenue, which includes franchise and license fees, fell 3% to $3.01 billion. It was the third consecutive quarterly decline. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had projected 74 cents a share on $3.09 billion in revenue.

Greg Creed
Creed

In its forecast, the Louisville-based fast-food giant said it now expects 14% growth from a year ago; the earlier forecast had been a smaller 12%. In a statement, CEO Greg Creed cited a rebound of its China business during the first half of the year. “I’m particularly pleased with the continued sales momentum at KFC China, which delivered better-than-expected same-store sales growth of 3% (MarketWatch and press release).

UPS is reportedly considering Louisville for a new $65 million 180,000-square-foot vehicle packaging facility with automated sorting equipment. But the shipper also is eyeing Jacksonville, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn., and Miami-Dade County. The project emerged in an application UPS filed with Miami-Dade seeking tax incentives to locate it in the northwest part of the county (Atlanta Business Chronicle). UPS is Louisville’s biggest private employer, with 22,000 workers at its Louisville International Airport hub.

AMAZON has passed an important threshold for invented holidays: Continue reading “Yum shares jump on sweetened profit forecast; UPS reportedly considering Louisville for new $65M project; and new Jack Daniel’s video is virtual reality” →

Just Tweets

The lucky groom-to-be is a 16-year-old photographer in Orem, Utah, and Taco Bell interviewed him.

Question: What inspired you to propose?

Answer: One day I came across my mom’s wedding veil and just thought, “You know what would be a crazy idea? To see if I could pull off getting engaged to a Doritos Locos Taco.” I asked her if I could borrow it and she said, “Sure, as long as you keep it clean.”

Latest Headlines

Humana stock jumps for second day; Amazon Prime Day sales soared, and yuck: Man chases Jack with bottle of Elmer’s glue

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:38 p.m.

Ford 2017 Escape
The 2017 Ford Escape built in Louisville took top honors in Cars.com’s annual compact SUV challenge.

HUMANA‘s stock closed moments ago up 4.3% at $161.30, posting its second consecutive day of gains. The beleaguered stock has been buffeted since last week’s surprising news that top executives met Department of Justice anti-trust officials in a last-ditch effort to keep the insurer’ $37 billion merger with Aetna on track (Google Finance).

The New York state insurance regulator has conditionally approved the deal, one of the last state sign-offs needed, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. The approval is significant because New York is one of the nation’s biggest insurance markets. Alongside the Justice Department, state insurance regulators have been conducting their own assessments, which are in some cases required before a transaction can proceed (Bloomberg).

The Louisville insurer is adding 70 telesales jobs to its existing 305 in Middleton, Wisc., to meet anticipated demand for the upcoming Medicare open enrollment period, Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 (Wisconsin State Journal).

KINDRED: Arkansas state lawmakers are giving mixed reviews to the state’s plan to sell its in-home health care services program to Kindred for $39 million, a deal closing Aug 1. Kindred submitted the highest bid of the six bidders and got the highest scores in the state Health Department’s bid evaluation (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette).

UPS fired an employee at its Maumee distribution center yesterday after investigating a photo posted on Facebook purporting to show a noose hanging inside the northeast Ohio facility. It’s unclear whether the employee taking the photo was fired, or the person responsible for the noose itself. Maumee is 18 miles southwest of Toledo (Toledo Blade).

AMAZON said yesterday’s second annual Prime Day Continue reading “Humana stock jumps for second day; Amazon Prime Day sales soared, and yuck: Man chases Jack with bottle of Elmer’s glue” →

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

Lawrence made $46 million, but look who just bumped her further down the new list of 100 highest-paid celebrities

Jennifer LawrenceBoulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:

Two starsWe should all have such problems, right? Lawrence made an estimated $46 million in the year ended last month, ranking her no. 49 on Forbes’ just-published list of the world’s 100 highest-paid celebrities, dropping from no. 34 a year ago.

The top five, with their year-ago ranking:

Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo

The story appears in Forbes’ July 26 issue, with “mobile mogul” Kim Kardashian on the cover; the reality TV star ranked no. 42, with $51 million, down from no. 33 a year ago. The issue also includes the previously reported list of America’s 25 richest families, a roster that includes the Browns of Louisville, Brown-Forman’s founding family. They ranked no. 20 with $12.3 billion, unchanged from a year ago.

Chris Pratt
Pratt

Despite dropping in Forbes’ ranking, Lawrence has rocketed to the top of the pay scale in Hollywood: She got a whopping $20 million for the upcoming “Passengers,” setting a new bar for future projects. The movie, with “Jurassic Park” star Chris Pratt and a scheduled Dec. 21 release, is about a spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant colony planet, when a malfunction in its sleep chambers causes two passengers to wake up 60 years early. (We can safely guess who plays those two passengers.)

Lawrence, 25, starred in three movies released during the year Forbes counted big paychecks: “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2“; “Joy,” and “X-Men: Apocalypse.” Plus, she got cast in one of the hottest properties of the year: “Bad Blood,” a biopic about disgraced Silicon Valley start-up executive Elizabeth Holmes.

Other films in the works include “It’s What I Do,” and an untitled Darren Aronofsky project, now filming.

A $5 billion list

Overall, Forbes said, the world’s 100 highest-paid celebrities pulled in $5.1 billion pretax during the magazine’s June 2015 to June 2016 scoring period. Figures are based on numbers from Nielsen, Pollstar, Box Office Mojo, Songkick and IMDB, as well as interviews with industry insiders and many of the stars themselves.

Latest Headlines

Taco Bell to open flagship Cantina on Las Vegas Strip; Pizza Hut launches a chatbot ordering system; and Humana stock edges higher, breaking downward spiral

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:34 p.m.

Taco_Bell_Las_Vegas_Flagship_Restaurant
Artist’s rendering shows new two-story Las Vegas restaurant.

TACO BELL this afternoon announced plans to build a two-story 24-hour flagship Cantina in Las Vegas right on the Strip at East Harmon Avenue, across from CityCenter and The Cosmopolitan Hotel; it’s expected to open this fall and will be the third in the growing Cantina division. Like other Cantinas, the Las Vegas restaurant will serve alcohol, including beer and Twisted Freezes slushies. Taco Bell introduced the Cantina concept last year with two urban locations, in a bid to draw younger diners with a more tech-focused ordering system and design. Of the 2,000 Taco Bell restaurants planned to be built by 2022, 200 will be urban locations, a typically underrepresented geography for the brand (press release).

Cantina debuted in Chicago last September, and a San Francisco outpost followed a few weeks later. After Las Vegas, Taco Bell plans to take the concept to Atlanta, and further expansion is in the works for college towns and dense urban areas across the country (Eater). Twisted Freezes come in three flavors: Taco Bell’s proprietary Mountain Dew Baja Blast (blue), Cantina Punch (red), and Margarita (green). Patrons can add their choice of rum, tequila or vodka (Chicago Eater).

Baron Concors
Concors

PIZZA HUT announced a new artificial intelligence chatbot that works within Facebook Messenger, and on Twitter, part of a massive roll-out the company is calling “social media ordering.” Chief Digital Officer Baron Concors demonstrated the chatbot at MobileBeat 2016 during a session on chatbot innovations. The new bot can handle pizza and other food delivery orders from customers who have Pizza Hut accounts, streamlining the process, improving accuracy, and eliminating wait-times. It will be available starting next month (Venture Beat and press release).

HUMANA‘s stock closed moments ago at $154.65 a share, up less than 1% — still, the first up day since news broke last week that the insurer and Aetna of Hartford were struggling to keep their $37 billion merger on track during an unexpected meeting with the Justice Department. Aetna’s stock fell less than 1%, closing at $115.50 (Google Finance). None of the parties in the DOJ negotiations Friday have publicly disclosed the outcome. Humana has 12,500 employees in Louisville.

AMAZON: Some shoppers encountered a glitch Continue reading “Taco Bell to open flagship Cantina on Las Vegas Strip; Pizza Hut launches a chatbot ordering system; and Humana stock edges higher, breaking downward spiral” →

Executive Pay

Brown-Forman’s Jones in $1.5 million stock transaction
Jill Jones
Jones

Brown-Forman Executive Vice President Jill Jones cashed in 15,106 class B shares on Friday for nearly $1.5 million, the company said in a regulatory filing this afternoon.

She received the shares in the form of SARs — or stock appreciation rights — under the executive compensation plan, for the equivalent of $38.43 each, or a total $581,000. So, her pre-tax net was about $919,000.