Category: Latest Headlines

Latest Headlines

GE outsources, shuts down line — shifting 320 jobs; and KFC franchise owner in Ky. offers ultimate meal deal to cops: free food

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:23 p.m.

GE said today it will outsource work at a warehouse and distribution operation at Appliance Park and also close a water-heater manufacturing line, displacing about 300 good-paying union jobs and another 20 salaried ones. Officials said they expect all the affected workers will be absorbed into current operations, a prediction union leaders worry still could cost jobs (Courier-Journal).

KFC sign law enforcement eats free
Franchise owner Doug Knipp reportedly posted this sign outside an Ohio KFC.

KFC: An Ashland KFC franchise owner is offering uniformed law enforcement officers free meals 24/7 at his restaurants in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, and a photo of a sign announcing the deal on the front door of one outlet is spreading across Facebook like wildfire. Doug Knipp’s KFCs in Kentucky include outlets in Pikeville, Ashland, Grayson, Hazard, Jackson, Prestonsburg, Morehead, Paintsville, and Louisa (WKYT). It’s unclear how long Knipp’s been making the offer, but it follows several high-profile cases where law enforcement officers have been treated poorly at Yum restaurants, most recently at a Taco Bell in Louisville last week; news of that incident continues to spread.

Keith Meister
Meister

YUM: The activist investor and Yum director who drove last October’s agreement to spin off the China Division is at it again, this time at the Williams Cos. Keith Meister of Corvex Management, which holds a 4% stake in the energy giant, is using an unusual approach to run his own 10-member slate of nominees for the board of directors. Trying to meet a sudden deadline, he’s nominated 10 who will merely serve as placeholders until after the election. At that point, if he’s victorious, they would resign in favor of permanent ones. Meister favors a merger deal with a Williams competitor, but he’s been thwarted by the CEO and some board members (New York Times).

PAPA JOHN’S: A Memphis couple has been sentenced to a combined 30-plus years in federal prison for robbing a Papa John’s and multiple other businesses across Memphis in May and June last year (Fox 13 Memphis).

AMAZON: Three years after it started opening distribution centers in Texas as part of a settlement with the state over the collection of sales taxes, Amazon says it will open its eighth major shipping facility in the state. It will be in Coppell, 22 miles northwest of Dallas; an existing center there employs about 1,000 workers. Two more are under construction in San Marcos and Houston (Dallas Morning News and press release). The retailer employs 6,000 in the Louisville area at centers in Jeffersonville and Shepardsville; more about the company here.

Amazon is expanding its bricks-and-mortar footprint across the United States, undeterred by the fact many physical bookstores have been struggling for years. It’s adding stores in Chicago, San Diego, and Portland, Ore., after opening its first last year in its Seattle hometown. The Chicago store is to open next year (Financial Times).

Latest Headlines

Doth Yum protest too much about latest report of possibly leaked ultra-secret KFC recipe? More questions surface!

KFC’s corporate parent has insisted once more that a Chicago newspaper story last week purportedly revealing founder Colonel Harland Sanders‘ closely-guarded recipe of 11 herbs and spices got it wrong.

But Yum’s latest pushback raises new and vital questions about what it really knows!

KFC bucket of chickenThe story gained renewed traction when The New York Times picked it up yesterday, prompting Yum to issue a statement to the nation’s newspaper of record and its 77 million readers:

“Many people have made these claims over the years and no one has been accurate — this one isn’t either.” That was essentially the same thing Louisville-based Yum told the Chicago Tribune.

Last week, a Tribune freelance writer said Sanders’ nephew had revealed the recipe after discovering it in his aunt’s scrapbook; she was Sanders’ second wife. In a follow-up interview, the nephew, Joe Ledington, a 67-year-old retired school teacher outside Corbin, Ky., tried to walk back his claim, apparently worried he’d let the chicken out of the bag.

But Yum’s insistence raises so many questions, including:

  • How far off is the Tribune recipe — a grain or two of salt, or a whole lot more? A merely teeny-tiny variation in the published recipe and the one held in a Yum vault may be a distinction without a difference.
  • How does Yum’s public relations department verify these recurring claims, given how difficult it must be to access the original recipe, said to be on a yellowing piece of paper moved to a more secure location with great fanfare eight years ago? Must Yum CEO Greg Creed personally unearth the company’s version of a launch code to open the vault, then make the comparison himself? Does accessing the vault require two — or more! — executives to combine codes they carry separately? Is Creed followed around by an aide bearing Yum’s own gold codes football?
  • Is it true the promotional KFC-scented suntan lotion released this week can be reverse-engineered to uncover the real recipe’s ingredients?
  • What was really buried in Sanders’s grave in Cave Hill Cemetery after he died at Jewish Hospital in 1980 at age 90? Is that where the recipe is actually stored?!
harland-sanders-grave question mark
Question marks the spot of Sanders’ alleged Louisville grave.
Latest Headlines

Schnatter unloads another $1.7 million worth of Papa’s shares

It seems Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter can hardly sell shares fast enough. Moments ago, he notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that he’d sold 22,261 shares at $76 each, for a total $1.7 million.

That’s the same per-share price he got Tuesday and Monday, when he sold 11,500 for $873,000 — trades we reported just this morning. And those all followed the 24,322 shares he unloaded the first week of the month, when three other top executives went to market as well, all at prices between $76 and $77 a share.

John Schnatter
Schnatter

Insider sales like these are always noteworthy because they could mean the top brass thinks share prices have plateaued, or are headed lower. On the other hand, such trades could simply involve selling to raise cash or diversify investment portfolios.

Whatever the case, Papa John’s PZZA closed today at $75.34 a share That’s well below the record $78.09 trading high on Aug. 3. And as we pointed out this morning, Schnatter, 54, still holds the single-biggest stake in the company he launched in 1984: 10 million shares worth $753 million. With options, the figure rises to nearly $800 million.

Latest Headlines

Schnatter trims holdings by another $873K, new SEC filing shows; mourners recall pregnant Calif. Taco Bell employee killed in crash; and UPS to launch expansion

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:12 p.m.

PAPA JOHN’S founder and CEO John Schnatter sold 11,500 shares this week at $76 each for a total $873,000, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing yesterday.

To put Schnatter’s $873,000 profit in perspective, consider this: His pizza chain is running a help-wanted Craigslist ad in the Louisville area right now for delivery drivers, promising as much as $20 an hour, with tips. At that rate, a driver would need to work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, for 21 years to make what Schattner, 54, earned with a few keyboard strokes this week.

And he still owns a lot more stock. The trades were made Monday and Tuesday, and left him with a still-huge stake: 10 million shares worth $758 million at yesterday’s closing PZZA price of $75.80. With options, the figure rises another $40 million.

HUMANA declared a regular quarterly dividend of 29 cents a share payable on Oct. 28 to stockholders of record Oct.13 (press release).

Dulce Capetillo
Capetillo

TACO BELL: In San Jose, Calif., last night dozens of mourners remembered Dulce Capetillo, the pregnant 18-year-old Taco Bell employee killed in a car crash last week on the way to picking up her husband, who worked for the fast-food chain during the late shift at another outlet. Doctors saved their infant son, Christopher; he’s now eating from a bottle and no longer tethered to medical equipment. By yesterday, nearly $17,000 had been raised to cover Capetillo’s funeral costs and Christopher’s medical bills, with Taco Bell contributing toward the total (Mercury News). In Louisville, the fast-Mexican chain delivered free lunch yesterday to Louisville Metro Police headquarters as it made amends for an embarrassing incident last week, where employees at a Taco Bell on Preston Highway near Phillips Lane initially balked at serving five LMPD officers (WDRB).

UPS will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking for its previously announced $310 million expansion of the company’s giant shipping hub at Louisville International Airport; the project is expected to add 300 jobs over the next 18 months to the 22,000 already there (Courier-Journal). UPS is the city’s single-biggest private employer; more about the shipper’s local operations.

BROWN-FORMAN turned to automation in an expansion of its Jack Daniel’s distillery operations in Lynchburg, Tenn., according to a new and very wonky account in a trade publication (Automation World).

Latest Headlines

Metro United Way names Fischer aide Reno-Weber as new CEO of $27M chapter
Theresa Reno-Weber
Reno-Weber

Theresa Reno-Weber comes to the United Way’s Louisville area affiliate from Mayor Greg Fischer‘s officer, where her broad portfolio included a 200-person staff responsible for strategy, human resources, IT and other functions. She’s been Fischer’s Chief of Performance and Technology since 2012.

Her appointment as president and CEO is effective Jan. 1, United Way said in a press release today.

Reno-Weber is replacing Joe Tolan, who is retiring in December after 30 years, including the last 15 as chief executive. She was picked by a succession planning committee of current and former members of the board of directors.

Before the mayor’s office, Reno-Weber was a senior consultant for management advisory giant McKinsey & Co. from 2008-2012, according to her LinkedIn profile. She graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 2000 with a bachelor’s in public policy and international relations. After working six years for the Coast Guard, she earned a master’s in public policy and international security at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2008.

Metro United Way’s budget was $26.6 million in the year ended April 30, 2015, vs. $28.1 million in the prior fiscal year, according to the most recent IRS tax return posted on its website. It had 94 employees, and reported $26.7 million in contributions for the period vs. $27.4 million in the prior fiscal year. Here’s its GuideStar page with previous IRS returns and other information.

Joe Tolan
Tolan
Tolan’s pay: $280K

The chapter didn’t disclose Reno-Weber’s compensation; we’ve asked for that information, and will update this post if we hear back. Tolan was paid $229,200 in salary plus $50,714 in other benefits in fiscal 2014, according to the IRS return. The other highest-paid employees were Gilbert Betz, chief strategic officer, $131,939 salary and $34,021 in benefits; and CFO Phillip Bond, $123,843 and $67,095. Here’s the staff roster.

United Way focuses on helping kids and families with basic needs such as childcare and after-school activities in seven counties Kentucky and southern Indiana counties: Jefferson, Bullitt, Oldham, Shelby, Clark, Floyd and Harrison. Here’s the list of agencies it funds; read more in its annual report.

The selection committee’s members were board chair Jane C. Morreau; James Abruzzo, J. Barry Barker, Joseph Brown, Mary Gwynne Dougherty, Chris Hermann (chair elect), Mark Kristy, Tim Sanders (UAW and Central Labor Council), Justin M. Suer, and Vincent T. Walker. Here’s the current board of directors.

Latest Headlines

KFC’s new extra-crispy marketing recipe revealed! Big name + bizarre thing = smell of success

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 9:43 a.m.

KFC‘s latest publicity stunt — fried chicken-scented sunscreen — zigged in the U.S. from People magazine, then zagged to the U.K.’s Marie Claire, rolling up untold millions of dollars in free PR over the past 48 hours since its brief Monday launch. And it all involved just 3,000 bottles of a fake product never meant to get into consumer’s hands, according to trade site DigiDay.

KFC sunscreen 75Google News counted nearly 100 websites mentioning KFC Extra Crispy Sunscreen. Huffington Post’s story had 3,100 shares. The retro promotional infomercial video got nearly 280,000 views since it was posted on YouTube. And it won 11,000 mentions on social media, said Brandwatch analyst Kellan Terry.

The campaign was by the W+K agency in Portland, Ore., and followed the same formula W+K used for another client: Old Spice. “Its irreverent and unconventional,” Terry said, “and people love to laugh and watch the ad as it unfolds. These types of spots are tailored for multiple platform success.” And it paired perfectly with fake Colonel Harland “Extra Crispy” Sanders, played by actor-turned-pro tanner George Hamilton (photo, top).

The sunblock gimmick followed KFC’s two edible nail varnishes — flavored Original and Hot and Spicy — released in Hong Kong back in May.

TACO BELL is once more in the very unwelcome spotlight after reports employees refused to serve law enforcement officers. The latest incident, involving five Louisville Metro Police officers, comes amid a summer of rising tensions between police and the public.

The one in Louisville happened last week at the Taco Bell at Preston Highway and Phillips Lane, when the officers were taking a work break from duty at the Kentucky State Fair. One employee told co-workers he wouldn’t take the officers’ order, though another worker did eventually take the order, according to Sgt. Dave Mutchler, president of the River City FOP union representing officers.

“However, in the meantime,” Mutchler wrote in an e-mail, “another employee stated to a co-worker ‘I want to mess with them. I want to mess with them. I’m going to mess with them. I’m going to mess with them.'” Seeing no manager, the officers left.

Both Taco Bell and the Louisville franchise owner apologized to Louisville Metro Police and directly to the officers. The franchise owner says police made it clear they didn’t want any of the employees fired, and said he would retrain staff (Courier-Journal and WKYT).

The incident echoed one last month in Phenix City, Ala., where a Taco Bell clerk wouldn’t serve two sheriff’s deputies after another customer complained about the officers being there. The employee was fired and the chain apologized to the deputies and to the sheriff’s office. But there have been others involving cops:

  • In Toledo, Ohio, last week, a sheriff’s deputy was fired after making inappropriate Facebook posts about Taco Bell employees he said made vulgar remarks about him. One post said a black employee and a co-worker inside the restaurant yelled “Black lives matter,” and laughed at him while he was in his car in the drive-thru. The deputy was in uniform at the time.
  • A KFC employee in Missouri was fired early this month after reportedly threatening to spit in a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy’s order.

UPS: In Richmond, Va., the shipper says it plans to lay off 160 workers from its UPS Freight unit there within the next 12 months in a cost-cutting move. News reports didn’t give a total headcount there, however (Times-Dispatch).