Tag: KFC

Latest Headlines

KFC in U.K. fined $126K after failed health inspection; and Mid-City’s renovation delay was ‘a disaster to my tenants’

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 8:42 a.m.

KFC: British authorities have fined the restaurant chain $126,000 after it pled guilty in Cwmbran Magistrates’ Court to three charges over hygiene issues at a Pontypool restaurant in Wales last year. An environmental health inspector found no hot water in the bathrooms or food preparation areas, meaning employees couldn’t properly wash their hands, and the premises and food equipment could not be cleaned. The problem stemmed from a boiler that had failed 10 days before the inspection. Janet Cox, head of health, safety and environment at KFC U.K. said the company accepted the findings, and noted that 97% of the 890 U.K. restaurants have a food hygiene score of four out of five or above (Wales Online).

Louisville Magazine June 2016In other news, Mid-City Mall’s $1 million renovation last year was slowed by the discovery of asbestos in the roof, delaying completion of the nearly 60-year-old Highlands institution past the critical Christmas shopping season. “It’s been a disaster to my tenants,” majority owner Sandy Metts told Louisville Magazine in the just-published June issue. Metts, whose family bought the Bardstown Road property in 1976, had to reduce rent, and plans for renovating the Baxter Street side are now on hold.

Metts had to please critics who weren’t happy with the design from the git-go. “This is lipstick on a very old pig,” Debra Richards Harlan told the Bardstown Road Overlay District during the planning stages last year, according to WDRB. This was the first renovation since the 1980s. The mall’s development started in 1959, and was built on the former site of the German Protestant Orphan’s Home; photo, below:

German Protestant Orphan's Home
The front entrance to the orphanage in 1927, in this photo from the University of Louisville Photographic Archives.

And finally, private-equity shop Blue Equity of Louisville bought 3 Kings Entertainment, a broadcasting talent agency in Washington representing more than 100 news anchors, reporters, sportscasters and other media personalities for an undisclosed amount. The deal comes as Blue Equity builds a new sports and entertainment platform (Sports Business Daily).

Latest Headlines

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).

Final Business

Up in smoke: Amid $10,000 funerals, Cave Hill Cemetery cremation rates have soared

Only 10 years ago, just 3% of the internments at storied Cave Hill Cemetery involved cremations. Today, the cemetery estimates the rate has soared to 37%. The statewide rate is lower: 22%, but across the U.S., it’s nearly 47%.

UrnNo wonder. A traditional funeral in the U.S. costs $8,000 to $10,000, with the single-biggest expense being a casket, averaging $2,300 — a pricey item cremation doesn’t require. Urns for ashes, on the other hand, are a lot cheaper, such as the $139.95 one pictured, left.

The cemetery’s more famous permanent residents include KFC founder Harland Sanders.

Related: Read more about Louisville cemeteries, and funeral homes. Much of the state’s funeral industry is regulated by the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors; the board publishes industry laws and regulations, including requirements for inspections and publicly available price lists for caskets and other merchandise, plus services.

Photo, top: the cemetery’s iconic entrance at Broadway and Baxter.

Latest Headlines

For Humana’s top brass, Anthem-Cigna’s private ‘squabbles’ offer a window on mega-merger pitfalls

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 6:12 p.m.

anthem-cigna-logos-thumb-400Quarrels have broken out behind the scenes of Anthem’s proposed acquisition of Cigna, as the health insurers seek regulatory approval for their landmark $48 billion deal, according to a series of letters reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “People on both sides say the squabbles could delay or derail antitrust approvals, which are typically harder to obtain if both parties aren’t in sync,” the Journal is reporting today.

The deal was announced July 24, three weeks after Aetna and Humana announced their own planned $34 billion tie-up, as big insurers sought scale and efficiency in a shifting U.S. health care industry. The Anthem-Cigna dissension suggests their proposal may fall behind in the regulatory review,  worrisome because it’s “thought to have better odds if reviewed alongside Aetna-Humana,” the Journal says.

On Friday, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said he expected his company’s purchase of Humana would close during the second half of the year. He also said he couldn’t rule out the possibility Aetna might move its headquarters from its historic Hartford home once the deal is complete.

In other news, new federal overtime regulations could force employers to boost the pay of about 149,000 Kentuckians, although mostly at small and mid-sized companies. Starting in December, salaried employees earning $47,476 or less annually must be paid time-and-a-half for working more than 40 hours in a week; that’s twice the current level (Courier-Journal).

Latest Headlines

China fund and KKR drop talks to buy into Yum China; ‘Pac Man’ takeover of CJ-owner’s tough to swallow, and another Taco Cantina on the way

A news summary focused on big employers; updated 3:09 p.m.

tacobell-restaurant
The first Taco Bell Cantina in Chicago; next up is in Berkeley, Calif.

YUM: A consortium led by sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. and private equity firm KKR has ended talks to buy a stake in Yum’s 7,205-restaurant China unit, partly over Yum’s unwillingness to give up majority control because of the negative tax implications that would pose (Reuters).

GANNETT: Tribune Publishing’s defensive “Pac-Man” takeover of Courier-Journal owner Gannett would be a mouthful (New York Times). Meanwhile, Gannett’s unsolicited bid for Tribune got more personal yesterday, with each company calling out the other’s leaders by name and questioning management’s decision-making (Chicago Tribune).

TACO BELL is planning one of its next new Cantinas for Berkeley, Calif., across from San Francisco. The new formats, which target urban millennials and include alcohol on the menu, were announced last fall for Chicago and San Francisco (San Francisco Eater). The San Francisco Cantina is still alcohol-free — “no beer, no sangria, none of the boozy Mountain Dew slushies that they serve at the flagship Cantina in downtown Chicago,” thanks to a liquor license dispute with the neighbors (SF Eater, too). Taco Bell last week announced plans for four new upscale concept restaurants in Southern California.

KFC: That chicken-flavored nail polish the Internet fell in love with was a one-off by a Hong Kong franchisee; it won’t be sold company-wide. “As a brand strategy, it’s not something we will pursue,” Yum China CEO Micky Pant said in an interview yesterday after the fast food giant’s annual shareholder meeting in Louisville (Courier-Journal). Meanwhile, a video about the polish has gone viral, racking up nearly 231,000 views:

CHURCHILL DOWNS: Two horses have died today in separate incidents after races leading up to this afternoon’s Preakness Stakes (WDRB).

UPS will invest $177 million expanding its distribution hub in Columbus, Ohio, creating 75 jobs on top of the 748 employees already there (Columbus Business First).

PIZZA HUT: New Orleans police arrested a man for doing something very naughty on a mattress behind a Pizza Hut restaurant (Times-Picayune).

In other news, the Westport Village shopping center has been sold to Atlanta-based Hendon Properties for $23.8 million (Courier-Journal). The center at night, below:

Westport Village Shopping Center