Tag: KFC

In secrecy, Ali himself made sure his final show in Louisville would be the greatest of all

KFC Yum Center night
Ali’s funeral will be a publicity jackpot for Yum Brands and other companies. Some 15,000 mourners are expected at his memorial service Friday at the Yum Center.

Muhammad Ali planned his celebrity-packed Louisville funeral events this week in a two-inch thick document he developed in secret with his inner circle of family and advisors during a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Ali and his book
Ali and his 1975 memoirs.

Ali signed off on the plan in 2010, according to NBC News, although revisions continued until just days before the prize fighter and globally famous humanitarian died late Friday in a hospital in Phoenix, his primary home; he was 74.

In other words, the Thrilla in Manilla and the Rumble in the Jungle are about to meet the Burial ‘n Louisville before a television audience of untold millions, plus hundreds of thousands more attending in person across the city. The multi-day lineup may well rival “Operation Serenade,” the grand finale President Ronald Reagan’s aides orchestrated for his funeral 12 years ago. (Latest Ali funeral news, plus Twitter updates.)

Ali’s plans are virtually without precedent in recent Louisville history. They will demand the coordination of scores of businesses and government agencies. Although the final cost may never be known, it could run well into seven-figures. The events will be a publicity boon to companies from Yum Brands and KFC to A.D. Porter & Sons Funeral Home; storied Cave Hill Cemetery; a local public relations firm — and even street vendors selling souvenirs along the funeral procession route. Others are trying to cash in, too: One Craigslist advertiser in Nashville is offering a pair of boxing gloves purportedly signed by Ali himself for $20,000.

Bob Gunnell
Gunnell

Some proposals were scrapped, including having his body lie in repose at the Muhammad Ali Center downtown, according to long-time family spokesman and Boxcar PR owner Bob Gunnell. Ali’s wife, Lonnie, worried it would interrupt the center’s operations. “Instead,” says NBC, “Ali added a slow procession through the streets of the city, past the museum built in his honor, along the boulevard named after him and through the neighborhood where he grew up and learned to box. That will happen Friday morning, before the funeral service itself at the KFC Yum Center.”

Royalty in the house

Ultimately, a good portion of the cost will be borne by taxpayers for what will be a huge turnout of Louisville police officers, plus the U.S. Secret Service, FBI and other law enforcement needed to guard the Porter & Sons Funeral Home; control crowds, and protect visiting dignitaries — including at least one sitting king.

King Abdulla
King Abdullah

Actor Will Smith, who played Ali in the 2001 film of the same name, will be a pallbearer. Former President Bill Clinton and the comedian Billy Crystal will deliver eulogies at the massive public memorial service at 2 p.m. Friday at the Yum Center.

King Abdullah II of Jordan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had been scheduled to speak. But yesterday, they were bumped to make room for two other speakers whom Gunnell, the Ali family publicist, said would be identified later. President Obama could be one of them, along with First Lady Michelle Obama.

The Yum service is open to the public, but tickets — there will be 15,000 — are required; (how to get them). That’s already spurred out-of-towners as far away as Ottawa to offer $200 — and possibly even more — to anyone willing to stand in line to get one on their behalf when they become available tomorrow starting 10 a.m.

“Willing to pay any amount!!!” a man named Adam says in this Craigslist ad. “I am flying in from Canada to pay respects to my childhood hero, Muhammad Ali.”

At least one company was advertising for street vendors to hawk Ali flags, buttons, and other commemorative merchandise from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday along the Muhammad Ali Boulevard procession route and in front of the Yum Center.

Ali boxing gloves
But are they real?

Earn $200-$300!

“Seeking outgoing sales team,” the Craigslist poster said, before taking the ad down. “You will be selling Muhammad Ali flags and buttons, celebrating the life of Louisville’s hometown hero (and world hero)! Your pay: 20% commission; average earnings $200-$300.”

In Nashville, a Craigslist advertiser is selling what they claimed are a pair of boxing gloves signed by Ali at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where Ali himself lit the Olympic Cauldron. Asking price: $20,000. “This is a treasure find,” the ad says.

Porter & Sons Funeral Home on Bardstown Road is coordinating at least some of the services. The public ceremonies will be followed by a private burial in Cave Hill Cemetery in the Highlands, a much simpler event planned in accordance with Ali’s Islamic faith. He’ll be among other prominent figures from Louisville and Kentucky history in the historic burial ground, says The Courier-Journal. (More about Cave Hill.)

Here’s Will Smith in the Ali movie trailer:

Churchill and ‘The Greatest’ met in ’63; B-F results tomorrow have EPS up, but revs down; and Papa’s pan pizzas are back

Ali at Churchill Downs
Ali training at Churchill Downs in 1963 in recently surfaced photo.

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 3:32 p.m.

BROWN-FORMAN reports fiscal fourth-quarter results tomorrow by 8 a.m. Analysts expect earnings per share of 72 cents vs. 66 cents a year ago, on $899 million in revenue vs. $947 million. There will be a conference call with management and analysts at 10 a.m.; details. Also, Newsweek magazine ranked the company the “greenest” beverage alcohol company among U.S. publicly traded firms (press release).

CHURCHILL DOWNS: Muhammad Ali is seen on a training run at Louisville’s iconic race track in a 1963 photograph that has just surfaced. It’s one of thousands photographer Curt Gunther took of the Louisville native during the years he accompanied the prize fighter in and out of the ring (CNN). Ali died late Friday in Phoenix at 74 after battling Parkinson’s disease for decades. The funeral he planned for himself in secret this Friday may be without precedent in recent Louisville history.

KFC: Chick-fil-A’s skip-the-line ordering app is no longer No. 1 in Apple’s App store, but it’s still holding a respectable No. 3 — enough to continue embarrassing rival KFC, which launched its own app the same day. More than 1 million people have downloaded Chick’s One app since it was announced last Wednesday. How they pulled it off (The Atlantic). In France, KFC says a video purporting to show a customer finding a whole, cooked chick in a bucket meal is a hoax; video of the alleged incident has been widely shared across social media (Express).

PAPA JOHN’S is offering pan pizza for the first time since 2005 in select markets, including parts of Kentucky; Evansville, Ind., and Denver (Courier-Journal). In Winston-Salem, N.C., an armed man robbed a Papa John’s Sunday at 3:40 p.m. after forcing an employee to open the cash registers. The man, said to be in his 30s, left after ordering the employee and two other workers to the back of the store (Winston-Salem Journal).

PIZZA HUT: A restaurant in Huron, S.D., was destroyed in a fire early Saturday morning the appeared to have started in the kitchen area (Plainsman). In New Zealand’s North Island, as many as three men armed with a machete robbed a Pizza Hut of $298 U.S. at 11 p.m. yesterday, leaving two employees shaken but unharmed. Police said the men were “heavily disguised” with balaclavas and one wore a hi-visibility vest during the incident in Palmerston North (News Hub).

In other news, U.S. stocks were mostly flat after government data showed first-quarter business productivity fell (Google Finance). The 11 big employers in the Boulevard Stock Portfolio were mixed; Ford was up 1.8% to $13.41 less than 30 minutes before the closing bell.

Haier opens Russian fridge factory, as GE close nears today; Ford shakes up China; and ‘you were hot’ at Dallas Roadhouse

R_13936_01_n
Two employees work on an Appliance Park spray line in 1953, two years after construction started. China-based Haier could close on its $5.4 billion purchase of the GE complex today.

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 3:13 p.m.

GE: Haier has opened a new refrigerator factory in Russia to serve increasing demand from the European market. The new plant is the first joint Sino-Russian business project in a non-energy field (China.org). Back in the U.S., Haier wants its product development model to be more collaborative with its supply chain (Plastic News). The Chinese company could close on its $5.4 billion purchase of GE’s appliance business as soon as today. Meanwhile, GE is considering scrapping annual raises, as well as the longstanding and much-imitated system of rating employees on a five-point scale — moves that could lead other major companies to reconsider their own compensation plans (Bloomberg).

FORD reshuffled China sales leadership: Dave Schoch, group vice president and president of Asia Pacific, will take over and add the title of chairman and chief executive officer, Ford China. “As our growth plans in China have developed, this market is delivering an increasingly important portion of our revenue and profits globally,” CEO Mark Fields said. “Elevating the reporting of this business right now reflects China’s importance in our profitable growth plan going forward” (press release). Ford shares were up 1.2% to $13.19 40 minutes before the closing bell.

KFC will temporarily close at least some of its 12 restaurants in the southern African nation of Botswana this week after being placed under partial bankruptcy liquidation. Franchiser VPB Propco said it had been trying to the sell the restaurants for the past year without success, and the only option left was to shutter them, eliminating 400 jobs (Bloomberg). KFC clarified that the liquidation will not affect its business in neighboring South Africa (AFK Insider).

BROWN-FORMAN: Two of the newly appointed members of the board of directors — Campbell Brown and Marshall Farrer — have disclosed stock holdings in the family controlled spirits and wine company. Brown listed sole ownership of 805,313 Class A shares, and 312,208 Class B shares (SEC document). Farrer listed sole ownership of 315 Class A shares, and 116 Class B (SEC document). Both men also disclosed beneficial ownership of thousands of other A and B shares, but because some are counted twice as a result of overlapping trusts, it’s unclear how many shares are involved.

Fortune 500The new Fortune 500 list of the biggest-revenue companies includes three in Louisville. HUMANA (No. 52); YUM (218); and KINDRED (372). They all appeared on the magazine’s list last year, too. Walmart held onto the No. 1 spot in the rankings published today (Fortune).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE: A customer at a Dallas area restaurant regrets a missed opportunity for romance with another diner. “I was sitting outside with my two boys waiting to be seated,” he wrote in the Craigslist Missed Connections section. “You came out and we locked eyes. . . . You then asked if you knew me! You were hot, but I was honest and said no. I wouldn’t mind getting to know you tho! 😉 tell me what you looked like or what you were wearing” (Craigslist Dallas).

In other news, the late boxing heavyweight and humanitarian Muhammad Ali will be buried Friday at Cave Hill Cemetery, a decision the Louisville native made that will raise the profile of the storied burial ground. Ali died late Friday at a Phoenix hospital after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 74, and lived principally in Phoenix. His family asked that expressions of sympathy take the form of donations to the Muhammad Ali Center downtown (WFPL). About the Muhammad Ali Center.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and other major stock indices rose shortly before noon as investors look toward a speech by Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen (Google Finance). All 11 big employers in Boulevard’s Stock Portfolio were trading higher.

Photo, top: University of Louisville Digital Collections.

Texas Roadhouse is the biggest Louisville-based restaurant chain you’ve never heard of

Texas Roadhouse
Founded in 1993, the company now has nearly 500 restaurants and 48,000 employees.

Boulevard focuses on news about some of Louisville’s biggest employers, nonprofits, and cultural institutions. This is one in an occasional series about them.

Put your books away; it’s time for a pop quiz!

Ever heard of a Louisville-based restaurant chain called KFC? Of course you have. Papa John’s? Certainly.

Now, what about that other big Louisville-based chain: Texas Roadhouse. Not so much?

KFC (15,000 restaurants in more than 125 countries) and Papa John’s (4,700 stores, 37 nations) are better known in Louisville at least partly because they’re older, and promote themselves more locally. There’s the KFC Yum Center downtown, and Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. And who hasn’t seen Papa John’s founder John Schnatter in one of his ubiquitous TV commercials?

Kent Taylor
Taylor

But Texas Roadhouse has come a long way, too — and in a relatively short time. Chairman and CEO Kent Taylor started the steakhouse chain in 1993 with a single restaurant in southern Indiana. Some 23 years later, it’s grown to nearly 500 company-owned and franchised restaurants in 49 states plus five foreign countries, and 48,000 employees.

That three big restaurant companies are all based in Louisville isn’t a huge surprise given an economic principle with an unwieldy name: agglomeration. That’s where companies beget other companies in the same industry nearby, all benefiting from the increasingly specialized labor pool and economies of scale: for example, intellectual property attorneys experienced in the fast-food trade.

Peanut shells
Western theme peanut shells.

Taylor, for one, started out as a KFC manager in 1990, when he returned to his Louisville hometown. Three years later, he opened the first Texas Roadhouse, in Clarksville, Ind. The restaurants are known for their western themes, line-dancing servers, peanut shell-strewn floors, and Texas Red Chili and ribs.

The company went public in 2004. Its headquarters is at 6040 Dutchman’s Lane.

Now 60, Taylor is the biggest individual stockholder, with 4.4 million shares, or 6.2% of all, according to the 2016 shareholders’ proxy report. His stake was worth more than $200 million in June 2016, when shares were trading at a record high of $46 each.

Amazon rips new high; B-F’s shares said looking ‘pricey,’ could tank 10%; and Pizza Hut, KFC push ahead in Myanmar

Amazon Japan
Amazon launched its Prime video service in Japan last fall.

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 4:12 p.m.

AMAZON shares notched a record $724.23 intraday high before closing moments ago at $722.79, up 1.5%; U.S. markets overall were weak (Google Finance). The online giant announced at least a dozen original video series for Amazon Japan, less than a year after entering the video market there (Deadline). More fresh Amazon news.

BROWN-FORMAN‘s stock is now looking pricey after a decade of 12.5% average annual returns that beat the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by five percentage points, according to financial weekly Barron’s. Class B shares closed at $98 on Friday and are now trading at 27 times forward earnings forecasts vs. a 10-year average of 21. The culprit: Revenue growth at the spirits and wine giant has slowed on currency swings, a problem that could soon fix itself. But by then, the company will face tough comparisons in a market that’s already crowded. Only one or two things must go wrong for shares to fall 10% or more (Barron’s). B shares were trading modestly lower 90 minutes into trading; the voting Class A shares were flat. About Brown-Forman.

PIZZA HUT and KFC are charging ahead with expansions in the former pariah nation of Myanmar after the U.S. Treasury’s easing of sanctions over human rights abuses. Pizza Hut opened one outlet last year; plans another three this year, and 20 over the next five years. KFC opened two locations  on top of five others — including one at Yangon International Airport that was blessed by monks during an opening ceremony April 6 (Global Meat News).

TACO BELL is planning three more urban-focused Cantinas, in Atlanta; Fayetteville, Ark., and Austin — areas with lots of coveted millennial college students attracted to the alcoholic beverages on menus; these newest locations follow another already in the works in Berkeley, Calif. (Eater Atlanta). Launched last year with locations in Chicago and San Francisco, Cantinas also rely heavily on technology: Every part of ordering is made easier through digital menu boards, TV monitors and Taco Bell’s mobile ordering and payment app pick up (press release). Also, 300 junior and senior high school students from 38 states who’ve won $1,000 scholarships from the Taco Bell and Get Schooled foundations will get their photos featured on a six-story digital billboard June 8 in the nation’s No. 1 tourist attraction: Times Square. This is the Graduate for Más Times Square Yearbook’s second year (Magnolia Reporter).

dd72ef_c0fd1a9b1cd54df5a2778d9922efc6eeIn other news, KMAC has postponed its reopening until July 1 because of construction delays. The $3 million renovation of the arts and crafts museum will streamline 20,000 square feet of exhibition space and 6,000 square feet of public area at its historic location at 715 West Main St. (press release). KMAC was to open June 4, with admission free for a year, underwritten by a gift from Dental Dental of Kentucky.

U.S. stocks zig-zagged, with major indices closely lower as traders looked for fresh clues on whether the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates in June (Google Finance). Shares in the 11-employer Boulevard Stock Portfolio tanked, too; Churchill Downs was the biggest loser, closing down 2% at $125.51.

And Louisville native Jennifer Lawrence’s newest entry in the “X-Men” franchise, “Apocalypse,” took the top box office spot with an estimated $80 million sales over the four-day holiday weekend. But that was a big decline from “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” which opened to $110.5 million on Memorial Day weekend in 2014 (WMDT). Watch the trailer:

$1.7B deal to sell Middle East Hut-KFC franchiser collapses

A news summary, focused on on big employers; updated 1:31 p.m.

YUM: A proposed $1.7 billion deal to sell a majority stake in the Middle Eastern franchise rights-owner of Pizza Hut and KFC to a local group of businessmen has been scrapped. Kuwait Food Co. had been up for sale for years, but talks to sell failed amid a diminished appetite for large transactions in a region where low oil prices have dented investors’ confidence (Wall Street Journal).

GE logoGE picked Boston for its new headquarters, but not before the border state of Rhode Island made its case by comparing itself favorably on labor costs. The average R.I. tech worker makes $93,000 per year vs. $109,000 in Massachusetts, state officials said. Gov. Gina Raimondo told The Providence Journal that the state’s final offer to GE was more than $100 million and “competitive” with the Massachusetts package. Providence and New York City were among the finalists before GE chose Boston in January. (Boston Globe).

In other news, over the past four years, the Louisville police have logged more than 9,200 calls for service from six area Walmarts, 33% more than the next-highest location, seven area Kroger stores (WDRB).