9:03 a.m. Brown-Forman headquarters, 850 Dixie Highway. Waiting for the annual stockholders meeting to begin — and the changing of the Brown family guard.
Month: July 2016
A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 7:25 p.m.
KINDRED said it would build a 60-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Tacoma, Wash., in a new joint-venture partnership with CHI Franciscan Health. The new hospital will care for adults recovering from stroke, neurological disease, injury to the brain or spinal cord and other long-term illnesses or injuries. The Louisville-based hospital and nursing home giant will manage the day-to-day operations at the new facility. Subject to regulatory and other approvals, Kindred expects the hospital to open by the first quarter of 2018.
In its Seattle market, Kindred already operates two transitional-care hospitals, two nursing centers, two co-located hospital-based sub-acute units, and it provides home health and hospice services. CHI Franciscan is affiliated with Catholic Health Initiatives, the third-largest nonprofit health system in the nation, with operations in 19 states (press release). Kindred has more than 2,200 employees in Louisville, and 102,000 company-wide. More about Kindred.
UPS is considering a $106 million expansion of its ground hub in Lexington (Herald-Leader).
AMAZON: The retailer just reported second-quarter financial results that beat Wall Street’s forecasts on the top and bottom lines. It earned $1.78 a share on sales of $30.4 billion. Analysts were expecting $1.11 EPS on revenue of $29.6 billion, according to FactSet (MarketWatch and press release). The company’s stock rode a roller coaster in extended trading: Shares are now up 2.7%, or $20.34, to $722.
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt bought 50,000 shares of company stock at $31.45 a share on Tuesday, for a total cost of $673,000 — a bullish sign he thinks the stock may be headed higher (Reuters). Shares closed today at $31.25, barely changed.
TACO BELL is introducing its latest mash-up experiment, the Cheetos Burrito, mid-August in Cincinnati for $1. This is the second version sold by the Yum unit; it rolled one out last spring, the Cheetos Crunchwrap Slider, that GrubStreet dismissed as the “height of laziness” (GrubStreet). According to the Orange County Register, it’s a burrito “stuffed with crunchy Cheetos, buttery white rice, seasoned beef and nacho cheese” (Register). We can only imagine how the concoction will taste, muses Uproxx. “Will the Cheetos inside get soggy and soft? Or will they maintain that crunch that everyone loves?” Its verdict is already in: “Peak Stoner” (Uproxx).
FORD‘s stock fell 8.2%, or $1.13, closing at $12.71 a share on weak second-quarter financial results. Revenue totaled $39.49 billion and adjusted earning per share came in at 52 cents, below the FactSet consensus of 60 cents. But that’s a beat on the consensus revenue forecast of $36.31 billion, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters (press release and MarketWatch).
BROWN-FORMAN: How one bourbon distillery makes its handcrafted barrels (Al.com).
In other news, embattled University of Louisville president James Ramsey agreed to resign yesterday, effective immediately, in a deal with the school’s trustees where he’ll be paid $690,000 in severance, the equivalent of about two years of his university salary only. Provost Neville Pinto will lead the university until a new president is selected.
Chairman Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman said the board rejected Ramsey’s proposal to serve for up to one year as interim president. Bridgeman indicated that at one point the board considered firing Ramsey, 67, outright (Courier-Journal).
His exit caps a tumultuous period where Gov. Matt Bevin fired the previous board of trustees last month because, he said, it had become too dysfunctional to deal with multiple scandals on Ramsey’s watch.
When food is art, and art is food.
Related: At Butchertown Grocery, an amazing dinner (especially fried chicken and waffles).
Boulevard reports extensively on executive pay at big local employers. But we also look at what folks make down in the trenches — or in the maternity ward. Here’s a help-wanted ad from our favorite Louisville Craigslist section: et cetera.
The job: surrogate mother.
The duties: First and foremost, you gotta get pregnant (duh) through in-vitro fertilization with donated sperm, according to your prospective employer, Family Creations Inc., a fertility clinic in Woodland Hills near Los Angeles. You’ll also have to relocate to one of six states, presumably because there are fewer legal issues there: California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Oregon or Texas.
You’ve also got to be OK with carrying twins, “as multiples are very common with this process,” the company says, adding: “Because of the high percentage of multiple pregnancies, surrogates must also be willing to undergo selective reduction.”
Other basic qualifications require you be 21 to 44 years old; have a BMI under 35; not smoke or use drugs; have had at least one easy pregnancy with no complications, and you can’t be getting any kind of government assistance.
Questions to expect on the application form include:
- Have you ever used a mind-altering drug such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, LSD or methamphetamines?
- How many sex partners have you had in your lifetime? How about in the last 12 months? The past 30 days?
- Have you or your partner tested positive for chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in the past 12 months?
- Have you ever been arrested, received a DWI, or been convicted of a felony?
- Have you received a tattoo or a piercing in the past 12 months?
There’s an informative video!
What it pays: $35,000 to $65,000, the highest compensation in the industry, according to the company. The payment will be made in 10 increments of $3,500 to $6,500. After giving birth, the surrogate will get a lump sum of the balance.
That sounds like a lot until you consider Continue reading “$35,000 to $65,000 to be a baby momma from Louisville. (But you can’t have any recent tattoos. No ecstasy use. And start counting your sex partners!)”
The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants*.
In Athens, Ga., a 24-year-old man was arrested and charged with attempted armed robbery of a Taco Bell early Sunday morning. The man, Dontavious McCullough, entered through a side door before the restaurant had opened, surprising an employee who was on the phone with a friend, whom the employee told to call 911, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.
When officers arrived, the employee ran out the front door yelling, “he’s inside, he’s right there!” McCullough then ran out a side door, authorities told the newspaper. An officer chased and tackled him.
While retracing the path McCullough took while fleeing, police found a ski mask hed discarded, according to the newspaper. They also recovered a 9mm pistol the suspect had hidden in the breaker panel at Taco Bell, according to police.
In San Antonio, it was another viral video about a fight at a fast-food restaurant.
The video shows a man in a Taco Bell drive-through recording the parking lot brawl between two girls screaming and swinging at each other, as he calmly orders three chicken soft tacos, a large diet coke and a chicken quesadilla, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
The man continues with his order as firefighters walk into the frame, the paper says, seemingly unconcerned with stopping the fight.
The video, originally posted to WorldStarHipHop.com, has been viewed nearly 1 million times, and has been shared more than 14,000 times since it was uploaded Monday. It contains language that might not be appropriate at work.
The San Antonio video comes less than a week after one filmed in a KFC in Russia, where one man cold-cocked another diner unconscious in an incident one witness called “the hardest punch I’ve ever seen.”
Pizza Hut
In San Diego last night, a man armed with a semi-automatic handgun Continue reading “With Georgia cops pursuing armed robber, Taco Bell employee shouts: ‘He’s inside, he’s right there!’”
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