Latest Headlines

Bevin appoints Brown-Forman, Glenview Trust, other big-money heavy-hitters to new UofL board; Schnatter and Frazier raise profiles

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 10:42 p.m.

Matt Bevin
Bevin

Tightening his grip on the University of Louisville, Gov. Matt Bevin today added 10 more members to his reconfigured board of trustees, appointing a slew of business heavy hitters, including at least one with long family ties to the board.

Among them: Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter; Glenview Trust Co. founder and chairman David Grissom, who’s also a retired Humana executive; and Brown-Forman heiress Sandra Frazier.

Schnatter is a major UofL booster, donating millions for naming rights to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. He and conservative industrialist Charles Koch donated $6.3 million to the school in March 2015 to establish an on-campus center to study the virtues of free enterprise; responding to criticism, the university said the money wouldn’t curtail academic freedom.

Sandra Frazier
Frazier

Frazier, who is now cycling off the Brown-Forman board of directors, also is a director of Glenview Trust, a boutique investment firm that serves more than 500 of the area’s wealthiest families. Her late father, Harry Frazier, is a former UofL vice chairman, and her uncle, the late Owsley Brown Frazier, was once chairman.

Two other Bevin appointees are private equity and venture capitalists, according to The Courier-Journal: Dale Boden, now a partner with Weller Equity; and Douglas Cobb, who co-founded Chrysalis Ventures with David A. Jones Jr., a Humana director. Jones’ father, David Sr., co-founded Humana and is also a Glenview Trust director. The 10-member Glenview board comprises some of Louisville’s  biggest power brokers.

Here’s Bevin’s order, with the full list of appointees and their terms.

Bevin’s announcement today follows his surprise June 17 dismissal of the previous 20-seat board, which he called “dysfunctional” in its oversight of the university and President James Ramsey. He replaced them with an interim three-member board, which he filled out with today’s appointments. The school has been roiled with controversy over Ramsey’s seven-figure compensation; a sex scandal involving the marquee men’s basketball program, plus other administrative missteps. Ramsey offered to resign when Bevin dissolved the board, but a final decision on his future was deferred to the next board.

In other news: Continue reading “Bevin appoints Brown-Forman, Glenview Trust, other big-money heavy-hitters to new UofL board; Schnatter and Frazier raise profiles” →

Latest Headlines

Louisville employer stocks jump again, as post-Brexit investor confidence rises; the Dow soars 285 points; and Walmart hits Amazon with free-shipping trial

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 6:18 p.m.

Brexit umbrealla
Clouds are parting.

Those employers’ shares closed higher today, as overall U.S. stocks clawed back half the ground lost after Britain’s surprise vote Thursday to quit the European Union. It was the second rally in two days on Wall Street, which had been rattled since Friday by uncertainty over the so-called Brexit. Britain’s stock market also has recouped losses in the same stretch, although other major markets in Europe and Asia have yet to bounce back fully, according to The Associated Press.

The three major U.S. stock indices all closed higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed 285 points, or 1.6%; the S&P 500, 35 points or 1.7%, and the Nasdaq, 87 points or 1.9%, according to Google Finance.

Here are today’s closing prices for the 10 employers tracked by Boulevard:

In non-Brexit news:

AMAZON: Walmart today launched a free 30-day trial of ShippingPass, its two-day shipping program to all U.S. consumers, as the world’s biggest retailer ratchets up the competition with Amazon’s Prime subscription service. ShippingPass costs $49 a year, half as much as Amazon’s $99 (Reuters and press release). Also today, Amazon slashed prices up to 50% on newly released, full-featured, unlocked Android smartphones for Prime members (company website). Amazon employs 6,000 workers in the Louisville area, at distribution centers in Jeffersonville, and in Bullitt County’s Shepherdsville.

KINDRED: Senior Vice President John Lucchese sold 4,341 shares for about $11.39 a share today for a total $49,000, the company said in a Form 4 regulatory filing (SEC document). Kindred shares closed this afternoon at $11.43, up 5%.

GE: U.S. regulators rescinded stricter oversight of the company’s finance arm, GE Capital, after saying the conglomerate had made changes that significantly reduced its threat to U.S. financial stability (Wall Street Journal). Its former residential home appliance business, now owned by Haier Group, employs 6,000 workers in Louisville.

John Yarmuth
Yarmuth

In other news, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville has once more donated his entire congressional salary — $174,000 — to charity, making good on a campaign promise when he was first elected a decade ago. The 17 recipients include three arts and humanities groups: Louisville’s Fund for the Arts, Louisville Orchestra, and the Muhammad Ali Center (WDRB).

Media and Marketing

Among media at Olympic trials in Omaha, WAVE stood alone. (But in the Instagram age, does it even matter?)
WAVE screen grab
Connie Leonard reported live last night from Omaha, with in-studio anchors Scott Reynolds, left, and Shannon Cogan.

WAVE’s solo was hardly surprising, of course, because the station is an affiliate of longtime exclusive Olympics broadcaster NBC, which paid $4.4 billion in 2011 for rights to the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 games.

The station was in Omaha to cover 21-year-old University of Louisville swimmer Kelsi Worrell, who made the U.S. swim team last night after beating her own personal best time last night, to win the final of the 100 meter butterfly in 56.48 seconds.

WAVE is owned by Raycom Media of Montgomery, Ala. The summer games start Aug. 5 in Rio de Janeiro; latest news.

The Omaha coverage — including this broadcast story — was a reminder of how much the city’s once-dominant media outlet, The Courier-Journal, has retreated as newspapers across corporate parent Gannett continue losing readers and advertising. The CJ apparently covered last night’s final by watching WAVE. “It’s a dream come true,” the paper said Worrell told NBC.

But in the age of Twitter and Instagram, more newsmakers bypass conventional media altogether. Worrall celebrated on both platforms moments ago.

Latest Headlines

Louisville companies snap two-day losing streak, as Dow Jones soars 269 points; and Yum China bidders reportedly bust deadline, balk at $10B valuation

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:16 p.m.

Those 10 companies tracked by Boulevard joined U.S. stocks clawing their way back from two consecutive days of steep losses, following Britain’s stunning vote last week to quit the European Union. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed moments ago at 17,410 — up 1.6%; the broader S&P 500 index jumped 1.8% to 2,036 points, and the Nasdaq climbed 2.1% to 4692.

June 28 Guardian
Today’s Guardian.

“This is going to take a long time to play out and I think the initial shock is being a little reversed right now,” Doug Cote, chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management told CNBC. “This is not 2008. It’s more like 2011.” (Read the latest Brexit developments in Britain’s Guardian.)

In Louisville, virtually all of Boulevard’s top 10 rose by the time markets closed at 4 p.m. They included Kindred, which got pounded yesterday, falling 7%. The closing prices:

Those gains came even as Ford said it expects the double-whammy of any softer post-Brexit industry and a weaker British sterling “would have an adverse impact on our operations in the long term,” a Ford spokesman told financial news site The Street. Ford also said it would issue revised 2016 guidance during its second-quarter earnings call July 28 (The Street). Ford shares have now tumbled nearly 8% since Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union — nearly twice as much as the broader S&P 500 index.

In its most recent annual report, in February, Ford warned about the impact of a possible Brexit, saying it “could cause financial and capital markets within and outside Europe to constrict, thereby negatively impacting our ability to finance our business, and also could cause a substantial dip in consumer confidence and spending that could negatively impact sales of vehicles.”

Last year, the U.K. was Ford’s single-biggest market after the U.S., accounting for 8% of the automaker’s $149.6 billion in sales:

Ford sales graphic

Ford employs nearly 10,000 workers at an auto assembly and a truck factory in Louisville.

In non-Brexit business news: At YUM, potential bidders for the fast-food giant’s mammoth China division  Continue reading “Louisville companies snap two-day losing streak, as Dow Jones soars 269 points; and Yum China bidders reportedly bust deadline, balk at $10B valuation” →

Cops and Courts

A dangerous mix: brandy ‘shooters,’ two boyfriends, and one angry woman

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants.*

KFC

Crime scene tapeIn Athens, Ga., 30-year-old Tina Gail Anderson was arrested after she showed up drunk with her current boyfriend at her former boyfriend’s KFC workplace,
called for him to come outside, and then drove recklessly in the restaurant’s parking lot.

When police arrived, they saw Anderson driving over a curb and into the parking lot of Ingles next door, according to a police report cited by the Athens Banner-Herald.

After Anderson was stopped, police said they found empty “shooter” bottles of brandy in her car, along with an open pint bottle of the liquor, the newspaper said.

Taco Bell

In upstate New York’s Genesco, two men who already had a string of misdemeanors were charged by police with three more on Saturday, after they allegedly crashed their U-Haul truck into a Taco Bell restaurant awning, then drove off after causing minor damage.

One of the men, Ricky Jackson, 49, had 15 suspensions on his expired permit, plus an active bench warrant for misdemeanor petit larceny, according to WHEC. After driving off, Jackson then returned to the scene and allegedly told a cop he watched police investigate from afar (which seems weird, right?).

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants in five countries. With that many locations, crimes inevitably will occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

Kentucky Opera names Dallas’ Derrer as new general director, in 2nd recent hire among big local cultural groups
Madame Butterly
The 2016-17 season starts with the classic Madame Butterly.

Ian Derrer, artistic administrator at Dallas Opera for the past two years, started his career at New York City Opera in 2004, after receiving his masters degrees in opera production, voice and performing arts management from Northwestern University and Brooklyn College, and a bachelor’s of music in voice performance from the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.

Kentucky Opera announced his appointment yesterday, effective Sept. 1. Derrer, 41, will oversee a 64-year-old organization with a $2.4 million budget. He succeeds David Roth, who died unexpectedly last July.

Ian Derrer
Derrer

In 2006, Derrer moved to Chicago’s Lyric Opera, starting as rehearsal administrator and moving up to production director and head of the rehearsal department. In all, Derrer spent eight seasons there, with one summer as rehearsal director at Santa Fe Opera.

As artistic administrator at Dallas, Derrer oversees budgets for the orchestra, chorus, and principal artists as well as members of the artistic staff, orchestra librarian, orchestra manager, chorus secretary, and scheduling department. The company was founded in 1957, five years after Louisville’s. Its budget is considerably larger, however: $14.2 million for the year ended in June 2014, according to its most recent annual IRS tax return.

Dallas Opera CEO Keith Cerny praised Derrer’s work, telling The Courier-Journal that he “guided important artistic and patron relationships, in addition to serving as advisor to both the music director and me.”

Louisville’s 2016-17 season of three productions starts Sept. 23 at the Brown Theatre with Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Dallas Opera’s upcoming five-production season also includes Butterfly.

Shifting artistic leadership

Derrer’s is at least the second appointment this year Continue reading “Kentucky Opera names Dallas’ Derrer as new general director, in 2nd recent hire among big local cultural groups” →