Tag: Jim Gray

Money in Politics

In U.S. Senate bid, Gray ran on business credentials. His first financial report lays them out

Lexington Mayor Jim Gray won the Democrats’ nomination for U.S. Senate yesterday by campaigning on his experience helping save the family’s Gray Inc. construction company after his father’s death. He’ll now face Republican Sen. Rand Paul in November — a contest he concedes will be tough.

Jim Gray
Gray

“I have no illusions about it being a challenging race,” he told the Lexington Herald-Leader, “but I’ve got the experience and I’ve got the record. That experience is in the private sector, in building a family business.”

In the race to the senate, Gray, 62, joins other well-heeled candidates who’ve run on business bona fides, including Gov. Matt Bevin and White House hopeful Donald Trump. Gray’s first financial disclosure report, filed last month, offers a glimpse at that record.

The April 15 report covers the period extending back to the start of 2015. As with all such reports candidates and office holders must file annually, Gray’s assigns only a range of values for his family’s business, real estate and stock holdings. An individual stock, for example, may be valued at between $15,001 and $50,000 — the value Gray gave to his investment in the biotech giant Amgen. What’s more, it’s a point-in-time view; there’s no way to know the value of any of the assets today, nor whether they’re even still owned.

Still, Gray’s report offers a revealing snapshot of his family’s more big-ticket assets:

  • Gray Inc.: valued between $5 million and $25 million
  • Gray Realty commercial property: $1 million to $5 million
  • Woodford Realty commercial property: $250,000 to $500,000
  • Visual and Antiquity Investments, which consists of contemporary paintings, sculptures, mixed media and rare books: $1 million to $5 million. The report doesn’t say whether this is a private collection or commercial venture

The report also lists stocks and other investment securities, with a combined value between $1.8 million and $4.1 million. The portfolio includes a mix of technology stocks (Apple and Facebook); pharmaceuticals (Bristol-Myers and Merck, in addition to Amgen) and consumer goods (Starbucks and Walt Disney). A partial list:

Gray portfolio medium

Finally, Gray also reported annual wages of $160,000 as mayor, and $125,000 from Gray Inc., where he’s non-executive board chairman.

Related: Watch Gray’s “American Dream” campaign video about saving the family business.

Latest Headlines

Ex-Hut owner loses $42M tax round; Taco tests four new layouts; and murder suspect says KFC meals used to coerce her confession
Taco Bell redesign
One of four new Taco Bell formats.

A news summary focused on big employers.

Gene Bicknell
Gene Bicknell

PIZZA HUT: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed legislation yesterday that could have helped former pizza baron Gene Bickell, who’s contesting a $42 million state tax bill over his 2006 sale of NPC International — America’s biggest Pizza Hut franchiser, with hundreds of restaurants (Topeka Capital-Journal).

TACO BELL is testing four new store designs this summer that give restaurants a more upscale look to better compete with Chipotle and boost dinnertime traffic (USA Today). Here’s the press release. The remodeled stores will be in the Orange County communities of Brea, Newport Beach, Santa Ana and Tustin (Los Angeles Times).

UPS is rolling out a new service where customers can track packages in real time on a map (Fortune). Also, a package handler in Sacramento, Calif., was killed in a fight during a concert Sunday; Thomas Noble, 31, leaves behind a school-age daughter (Sacramento Bee).

Jeff Bezos
Bezos

AMAZON CEO Jeff Bezos yesterday promised more retail stores beyond the single brick-and-mortar outlet in Seattle, as well as new services for the company’s Prime unlimited shipping membership during the company’s annual stockholders meeting (Wall Street Journal).

KFC: A woman in South Africa accused of murdering her employer says a detective coerced her into confessing by buying her KFC, mutton curry and pies (Iol).

In other news, one of Louisville’s biggest law firms — Bingham Greenebaum Doll — has hired former Metro Council President David Tandy as an attorney and lobbyist (Courier-Journal). Lexington Mayor and businessman Jim Gray became the first openly gay major party nominee in Kentucky to seek a U.S. Senate seat when he won yesterday’s Democratic primary; he’ll face Sen. Rand Paul in November (Herald-Leader). Wall Street stocks were flat as investors waited for the release of Federal Reserve meeting minutes (MarketWatch).