As is often the case, directors received varying degrees of support. Here’s the tally of “for” votes each one got; names are listed in order of those getting the highest to lowest share of all eligible votes. Board Chairman George Garvin Brown IV won the most: 95.72%.
The Brown family controls the nearly 150-year-old company through their 67% ownership of all voting class A shares.
Updated 8:40 p.m. Also today, Garvin Brown and newly re-elected Director Augusta Brown Holland were among a group of officers and executives who filed updated stock ownership notices with the SEC. The 22 separate Form 4 documents are in the SEC filings section of the company’s investor relations webpage.
The new $1 sandwich will be tested in Cincinnati next month.
More than two weeks before Taco Bell even starts testing a new Cheetos-stuffed burrito in Cincinnati, social media is having a field day — and handing the Yum division a public relations bonanza. Attorney Marcy Wagman Rauer told Huffington Post the $1 sandwich looks like “Donald Trump exploded.” And everyone was retweeting San Diego musician Danny Ellis’ marijuana-inspired conclusion that it looks “like a stoner’s dream date with death.” The chain had tested the “Cheetos Crunchwrap Slider” earlier this year in Canada, but this is the first time the snack’s being used on its menu in the U.S. (Huffington Post).
A hairy comparison?
In the Ohio test market, the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Ben Goldschmidt says to forget the November elections. “Sure,” he wrote yesterday, “we’re in a swing county in a swing state in a bonkers election year, but . . . we will decide for the nation if the cheesy powder of Cheetos successfully meshed with molten queso, or if it’s just an uninspiring, soggy lump in a burrito.” Much more news coverage.
Sadly, Taco Bell ranks only fourth of 10 places for potheads with the munchies, according to Stoner Days. The line-up:
To be sure, it wasn’t all good news yesterday for the Yum division. In California, Taco Bell is investigating reports employees taunted a Bakersfield police officer Thursday night by making “oink, oink” sounds and laughing at the cop in the drive-thru. “Taco Bell does not tolerate discrimination in any way,” the company told 23 ABC. “We are deeply appreciative of the men and women who have taken the oath to serve and protect our communities” (23 ABC).
The chain is still smarting from an incident two weeks ago in Alabama, where a cashier refused to serve two sheriff’s deputies; the chain apologized and fired the employee, but not before it was slammed across the Internet.
1936: Brown-Forman advertising car, possibly in front of the company’s distillery on Dixie Highway south of downtown. The promotion included the company’s founding bourbon, Old Forester; plus two brands no longer produced: Bottoms Up Whisky, and Old Polk, according to the University of Louisville Photographic Archives.
Yesterday, the founding Brown family rotated three new family members onto the board of directors of the nearly 150-year-old Louisville spirits giant.
UPS just reported second-quarter results that were in line with Wall Street’s forecasts. The shipper — Louisville’s single-biggest private employer — reported net income of $1.27 billion, or $1.43 a share, up from $1.23 billion, or $1.35 a share, in the year-earlier period. The FactSet consensus of analysts was for earnings per share of $1.43.
Revenue was $14.6 billion, up from $14.1 billion in the year-earlier period and in line with the FactSet consensus of $14.6 billion. The shipper reiterated its full year EPS guidance of $5.70 to $5.90, compared to the FactSet consensus of $5.80 (MarketWatch and press release). UPS shares closed at $108.10, down 63 cents. The company employs 22,000 workers at the Worldport hub at Louisville International Airport — the biggest fully automated package handling facility in the world.
Schnatter
PAPA JOHN’S late yesterday boosted its quarterly dividend by a whopping 14%. The new 20-cents-a-share payout, up from 17.5 cents a share, will be paid Aug. 19 to shareholders of record as of Aug. 8 (press release). The pizza giant’s shares closed today at $73.95, up 30 cents. On an annual basis, the 10 cents-per-share hike is worth another $1,045,598 to founder and CEO John Schnatter. His 10,455,981 shares — the most owned by anyone — are now worth $770 million. Shareholders proxy report lists all major holders.
KFC: In the U.K. and Ireland only today, fast-chicken giant KFC today will give away a year’s supply of hot chicken wings to one very lucky winner and their best mate in a promotion celebrating National Chicken Wing Day. “All you need to do is follow KFC on Twitter and then tell them why your best mate is, well, the best, using the hashtag #WingmanOfTheYear” (Metro). But don’t hesitate: You must enter by midnight tonight U.K. time, which is six hours ahead of Eastern Time.
TACO BELL: The world’s media outlets are now devoting wall-to-wall news coverage to Taco Bell’s new Cheetos-stuffed burritos debuting in the middle of August in Cincinnati. Behold the $1 sandwich in all its orange glory:
George Garvin BrownIV, a great-great grandson of the young pharmaceuticals salesman who started Brown-Forman in 1870, stepped onto a dais at the whiskey giant’s annual stockholders meeting today, and told an amusing story about a subject that might otherwise have been deadly dull: brand loyalty.
Garvin Brown
It was 9:30 a.m., and several hundred stockholders had assembled in a conference room at the white-collanaded headquarters on Dixie Highway west of downtown. On a classically muggy Louisville summer morning, this was a dressy crowd. Many of the men wore dark suits, crisp white shirts, and boarding school repp ties. Women wore tailored dresses, or smart skirts paired with jackets, and an occasional pearl necklace. People were tan and slim and — in the case of the many Browns there — very, very rich.
This was a business event, but it felt as much like a family reunion, too — because, after all, a core group of Browns control the company through an equity stake worth well north of $6 billion. Garvin Brown, who is 47 and lives mostly in London, was running the meeting as chairman of the board. Seated nearby in Chippendale-style chairs facing the audience were the other 11 directors up for re-election.
This is the story Brown told. He was on a flight from London to Warsaw for a meeting with the Brown-Forman team responsible for the company’s growing business in Poland. Brown had lucked out, scoring one of his favorite seats — aisle, in a roomy exit row — with two empty ones between him and the window. Then a British man, one of the many harried road warriors aboard, arrived to take the window seat. He asked for a Jack Daniel’s, Brown-Forman’s most profitable brand, when the flight attendant rolled the snack cart down the aisle. Here, Brown’s ears perked up.
But the airline was all out. Would the Brit settle for another brand of whiskey, the attendant asked, perhaps a Johnnie Walker? Nope, he replied, and asked for a glass of champagne instead. As Brown pointed out to the audience, here was a man so loyal to Jack Daniel’s, he’d sooner drink airline champagne than just any other whiskey.
That’s how Brown eased the stockholders into a more formal presentation by CEO Paul Varga, who deployed many bar charts and fever graphs showing return on shareholder equity over one year, five years, and 20 years — important stuff, to be sure, but not quite as compelling as Brown’s literally on-the-fly market research.
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.
News about business and culture in Louisville, Ky.
But the airline was all out. Would the Brit settle for another brand of whiskey, the attendant asked, perhaps a Johnnie Walker? Nope, he replied, and asked for a glass of champagne instead. As Brown pointed out to the audience, here was a man so loyal to Jack Daniel’s, he’d sooner drink airline champagne than just any other whiskey.
Boulevard 