Tag: James Ramsey

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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” →

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Bevin deflects question on whether he asked Ramsey to quit; calls UofL board ‘dysfunctional’
Matt Bevin
Bevin

Gov. Matt Bevin, asked if he sought James Ramsey’s resignation, said he’d spoken to many people, including the embattled University of Louisville president himself, and the “culmination of all the conversations I’ve had with everybody on all fronts is what I just announced to you,” the Lexington Herald Leader says.

Bevin said today those conversations also included leaders in the higher-education community,” and there is pretty much uniform agreement . . . (that) the board as it exists right now is not particularly functional. Its dysfunction has precluded it from doing what its responsibility is, and that is to be effective fiduciary leaders of the university,” according to The Courier-Journal.

Ramsey, 67, has been president since 2002. He offered his resignation, but it hasn’t been formally accepted, because a new board of trustees hasn’t been formed to replace the one Bevin dismissed today, according to multiple media accounts. The governor said Ramsey’s exit could come in the next two weeks. But state Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat, said Bevin’s firing the board is illegal, the Courier-Journal says.

James Ramsey
Ramsey

Bevin issued an executive order this morning that scolded the 20-member board for its “lack of transparency and professionalism” and described the relationship between the U of L administration and trustees as “operationally dysfunctional,” according to WDRB.

The governor appointed a temporary three-person board until a permanent one can be assembled: Junior Bridgeman, a businessman and former U of L basketball player; Bonita Black, a Louisville attorney, and Dr. Ron Wright, said WAVE.

Larry Benz
Benz

The board chairman is Larry Benz, a healthcare business owner. He’s been a trustee since July 2011.

Trustee Robert Hughes, the Murray physician who has supported Ramsey, said he learned about Bevin’s plans via social media — echoing statements by other trustees about being in the dark, the Courier-Journal reported).

According to Ramsey’s contract, if he resigns at the request of the board of trustees, he can keep a tenured professor position — for 75% of his most recent base pay as president, which is $350,000, according to WFPL.

Ramsey has been under fire for numerous scandals over the past several years, said WFPL. The NCAA is investigating the basketball program after a former escort alleged an ex-coach paid for strippers and sex for players and recruits. Last October, Ramsey apologized after he and his senior staff posed for a photograph at a university Halloween party wearing stereotypical Mexican garb, the radio station said.

One of the university’s most influential and wealthiest graduates is Humana co-founder David A. Jones Sr., who received a bachelor’s degree in business there in 1954.

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BULLETIN: BEVIN SEIZES CONTROL OF UofL; RAMSEY IS OUT

Gov. Matt Bevin announced today that University of Louisville President James Ramsey is stepping down and that he is reorganizing the Board of Trustees, according to The Courier Journal.

Bevin said he is appointing an interim board that will serve for the next two weeks. Ramsey is willing to step down immediately, Bevin said, but he could remain as president for as long as two weeks.

Bevin, a Republican elected in November, said it has been evident that changes in the oversight at U of L has been needed for some time. He said his intent is to “give a fresh start” to the university, according to the newspaper.

It is unclear whether there is a precedent for Bevin’s stunning move this morning. But it follows other aggressive steps he’s taken to reshape state government, moves that have roiled higher education and entrenched power players in Frankfort.

The governor’s decision is at least a tacit rebuke of Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat on whose watch Ramsey became a lightning rod for criticism over his seven-figure pay checks and bonuses as well as other administrative problems.

The two men have been engaged in an increasingly nasty war of words, virtually since the first day Bevin took office.

This story is still developing; updates coming. (Boulevard is hamstrung in our reporting because we’re working on a travel story here at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. And we’re working off our iPhone.)

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Jury sides with Kindred in N.H. man’s death; Ford Europe focuses on subcompacts for 6-8% margins, and Texas man gets life for killing Papa John’s driver

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 8:27 a.m.

KINDRED: A jury in Nashua, N.H., yesterday cleared Kindred Healthcare and Greenbriar Terrace nursing home in the death of a Nashua man more than five years ago. Byam “Bing” Whitney Jr. died in 2011 after developing pneumonia and then bedsores that led to sepsis and his death at the age of 84 (Union Leader).

FORD:  In a radical shift, Ford is repositioning itself in Europe’s small-car market by abandoning the minicar and focusing on subcompact buyers with a larger Ka and a more upscale Fiesta. The change highlights the automaker’s strategy of picking battles to win 6% to 8% profit margins for its European business (Automotive News).

Ruimin
Ruimin

GE: Haier Group CEO Zhang Ruimin was awarded the Legend In Leadership Award at the Yale University Chief Executive Leadership Institute Summit in New York City. The conference is organized by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the prominent senior associate dean for Leadership Studies at Yale’s School of Management; he is a much sought-after commentator on management issues (press release). Haier bought GE Appliances and 6,000-employee Appliance Park for $5.6 billion in a deal completed last week.

Delcid
Delcid

PAPA JOHN’S: A 38-year-old San Antonio man was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison yesterday for killing a Papa John’s delivery driver in 2014. William “Jimmy” O’Neill, 46, had been delivering at an apartment complex when Robert Carlos Delcid stole his car and ran over him as he tried to stop the theft. O’Neil’s 86-year-old mother Edna O’Neill told the jury: “He was a good kid” who called her nearly every day, always ending the conversation saying, “I love you” (Express News).

PIZZA HUT: In Odessa, Texas, a gunman robbed a Pizza Hut Wednesday night, demanded money and fled; no injuries were reported (American).

James Ramsey
Ramsey

In other news, University of Louisville Foundation vice chair Joyce Hagen paid virtually all the cost of a full-page Courier-Journal ad in April that lauded embattled school President James Ramsey, and blasted his critics on the board of trustees (Insider Louisville). Enormous craft beer restaurant HopCat expects to open in five weeks, assuming construction is done at its Grinstead and Bardstown roads location; it’s now hiring some 200 employees to handle the 132 varieties of beer (WDRB). And the news drought continues about Louisville native and Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence :(.

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New boomers on Brown-Forman board; Kindred’s got stock awards; big love for KFC’s threatened buffet, and big bucks for U of L’s Ramsey

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 7:40 p.m.

Brown Forman board 2015
In this most current board photo, retiring directors are Martin Brown (fourth from left); James Welch (seated, eighth from left), and Sandra Frazier (seated, 11th from left).

BROWN-FORMAN shifted its 13-member board of directors, electing Campbell Brown, Marshall Farrer, and Laura Frazier, effective today. The company also announced a regular quarterly dividend, and a special two-for-one stock split for both voting Class A and non-voting Class B shares. The split shares are expected to be issued to stockholders of record around Aug. 8, and distributed about Aug. 18 (press release). This is the 12th split since shares were first listed in 1933 after Prohibition’s repeal; the most recent was a three-for-two in July 2012. (Dividend history.)

The three new directors are all fifth-generation descendants of George Garvin Brown, who founded the distiller in 1870. “This election continues a multi-year evolution of Brown family representation on the board,” the company said. “As part of this process, Martin S. Brown Jr., Sandra Frazier, and management director James Welch Jr. — who’s retiring as vice chairman on Tuesday — have elected not to stand for re-election at the annual stockholders’ meeting in July” (press release also includes bios of new directors). Brown-Forman said the directors’ decision to exit the board wasn’t due to a disagreement with the company (SEC filing).

Laura Frazier
Laura Frazier

The company didn’t disclose the new directors’ ages; those retiring are in their 40s and 50s. (Executive and board profiles.) Today’s moves were not unexpected; the Brown descendants effectively control the company through their ownership of more than 50% of the Class A voting stock, and have historically voted as a bloc (2015 proxy report). Of particular note, Laura Frazier is owner, chairman, and past-CEO of Bittners, the more than 160-year-old high-end interior design firm on East Main Street in NuLu. At the end of trading today, Class A shares closed at $104.21, down 25 cents.

KINDRED just filed a raft of documents disclosing stock awards to members of the board of directors (SEC filings; look for all Forms 4 on today’s date). Also, the hospital and nursing home giant disclosed the breakdown of yesterday’s shareholder vote tallies at the annual company meeting; no surprises (SEC filing). Yesterday, Kindred had only reported that stockholders approved the executive compensation plan, and re-elected the full slate of 11 directors to the governing board — but without providing details.

KFC Canada says a much-loved, one-of-only-two-left, all-you-can-eat buffet-style restaurant in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, won’t be shut down after all — yet, anyway. Residents had taken to social media this week when rumors circulated the buffet was a goner. A sit-in was planned for yesterday. Even high government officials got involved: Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall took to Twitter (see below) on Tuesday, asking Yum to reconsider. The Weyburn KFC buffet was the first to open among the Canadian franchises in 1988; there’s now just one other left, in Saskatchewan’s Humbodlt (Global News).

Elsewhere in KFC land, actress Ann Hathaway jokingly compared comedian James Corden to a 16-piece you-know-what during a rap battle on The Late Late Show last night. “You look like a KFC bucket with a lot of extra breasts,” she said (Express).

UPS and its 2,500-member Independent Pilots Association union are making progress on bargaining a new contract (Courier-Journal). The pilots have been working under the terms of their previous contract for five years, and the union late last month set up a strike center here in Louisville.

GE: Qingdao Haier Co. has launched India’s first 44-lb. capacity washing machine. The Chinese company’s pending $5.4 billion purchase of Appliance Park is expected to close this summer (Newkerala and Courier-Journal).

James Ramsey
Ramsey

In other news, the University of Louisville Foundation paid President James Ramsey $2.8 million in 2014, according to its newly disclosed IRS tax return (WDRB). The return “appears to belie Ramsey’s claim last year that his compensation in 2013 was an anomaly” (Courier-Journal). The disclosure came one day after a published report that the foundation lagged many other Kentucky school foundations in annual investment performance.

Finally, Louisville Magazine has released the finalists in its annual Best of Louisville awards for businesses and individuals (Louisville).