John Schnatter told the Securities and Exchange Commission moments ago that he’d sold 44,174 Papa John’s shares for $3.4 million, the single-largest block he’s sold since he began aggressively selling at the start of the month; see table, below.
The filing shows he sold the shares at an average $76 each on Thursday. That brings to nearly 103,000 the number of shares he’s sold since Aug. 5, SEC documents show. Still, he remains far and away the single-biggest stockholder in the company he founded in 1984, with about 10.5 million shares, including those subject to options.
The company’s PZZA shares closed today at $75.36, up 91 cents, or 1.2%.
When Tom Jurich chases the money John Schnatter gives to charity every year, it’s the ever-prowling cats that pose competition.
No — not those ones. I’m referring to the snow leopard and other big cats at Louisville Zoo, just five miles from Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, the University of Louisville colossus about to undergo a $55 million renovation that athletics director Jurich wants done in just two years.
Schnatter, 54, loves U of L. He’s donated more than $20 million to the 22,000-student school over the past decade, winning naming rights for his Louisville-based pizza chain for decades to come. (And Schnatter’s a Ball State graduate, to boot.)
But he also likes other charities — especially the zoo, according to the most recent IRS tax returns for his John H. Schnatter Family Foundation, which filed its 2015 return only last week. The returns show the foundation gave $111,000 to the zoo in 2012-2015; only one other recipient — U of L — got more, among the dozens of charities Schnatter and his wife Annette support. And that was on top of $1.1 million they donated to the zoo in 2008. To be sure, the zoo was just barely ahead of No. 3 on the foundation’s gift list (keep reading).
The returns offer an inside look at how one of the city’s richest couples — we’re talking $800 million — positions themselves in a pecking order where the right kind of philanthropy is the ticket to top-drawer society. This much is clear: the Schnatters don’t give a flying fig about old-money Louisville. They’re passing on virtually all the usual suspects: the Speed Museum, Actors Theatre, Kentucky Opera, the Fund for the Arts — cultural war horses favored by more established families like the Browns and their 150-year-old whiskey fortune, or the Binghams and their faded media empire from 1918.
Instead, the Schnatters devoted their relatively modest $1.9 million to 86 charities over the four years I examined, focused heavily on helping children and veterans; animal welfare and — crucially, for anxious development officers — advancing John Schnatter’s growing interest in free enterprise and limited government.
But he’s never been old money, anyway.
1980s: bustin’ out
After graduating from Ball State University in 1983, Schnatter started Papa John’s in a broom closet at his father’s tavern, Mike’s Lounge, which he famously saved from ruin with $2,800 he got selling his prized 1972 Camaro. Nearly 32 years and many millions of pies later, he stars in his own TV commercials blanketing the air, proving he’s not above getting dirty to make a sale — literally. In a Sony Pictures marketing tie-in this summer, he played a slimed Ghostbuster pizza delivery guy; that’s a still photo, top of page. (Can you imagine Brown-Forman Chairman George Garvin Brown IV dressed as a dancing mint julep for an Old Forester spot? Neither can I.)
Jurich
No matter. Schnatter’s laughing all the way to the bank. Today, Papa John’s has more than 4,700 restaurants in 38 countries and territories. Its 22,000 employees include 750 in Louisville. And his stake in the $2.8 billion behemoth just soared past $800 million for the first time. That’s a lot of loot that’s arrived relatively fast. On a split-adjusted basis, Papa John’s stock has increased six-fold in the past five years alone. The question over at U of L: How much of that will Jurich wrangle for his $55 million stadium project? Continue reading “Slime time: In the genteel world of old-money philanthropy, pizza king Schnatter is busting loose”→
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.
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.
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).
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).
The total was less than one third what the Republican party pulled in during the month, and even less — by $3,000 — what it raised in June, according to its just-filed Federal Election Commission report.
The figures continue a trend that’s put the Democrats at a big disadvantage as they fight to keep control of the state House of Representatives in November.
The Democrats ended the month with $120,000 in its treasury vs. $73,000 at the start of July, the report showed. That also put it way behind the Republicans, which finished July with $1.6 million, according to their July report, filed last week.
A big part of the Democrats woes is a lack of big, wealthy donors. Led by Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter and his wife, the Republicans attracted 10 donations of $10,000 each in July — the maximum.
But the biggest donation to the Democrats was $5,000 from Andrew Martin Jr. of Louisville, a consultant with McCarthy Strategic Solutions. Most of the rest were in the mid three-digits.
The Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter and his wife Annette headlined a group of well-heeled donors to the state Republican Party last month, boosting its treasury by $151,000 and possibly pushing it even further ahead of the Democratics, according to its monthly Federal Election Commission report filed yesterday.
The party had $1.6 million on hand at the end of the month, after spending $188,000, the report said.
The Schnatters and just eight other $10,000 donors accounted for 66% of all the party’s receipts during in July, underscoring the role of a handful of wealthy residents in this year’s elections. Among them, Schnatter especially can afford do be generous: His stake in the pizza chain he founded in 1984 soared above $800 million less than two weeks ago after a run-up in the stock’s price.
The others $10,000 Republican donors were:
John W. Landrum of Harrodsburg, retired.
Henry R. Saufley III, owner, Builders Supply.
Pam Stephens of Russell Springs, bookkeeper and accountant at Stephens Pipe and Steele.
James Stuckert of Prospect, partner at investment firm Hilliard Lyons, Diane Stuckert, retired.
E. Duncan Taylor of Lexington, horse breeder, Taylor Made Farms.
William Wilburn of Eubank, president, Cumberland Security Bank, and Sherry Wilburn, a homemaker.
News about business and culture in Louisville, Ky.
But he also likes other charities — especially the zoo, according to the most recent IRS tax returns for his 
Boulevard 