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— Jim Hopkins (@louboulevard) July 27, 2016
Tag: Media and Marketing
When food is art, and art is food.
Related: At Butchertown Grocery, an amazing dinner (especially fried chicken and waffles).
A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:03 p.m.
YUM: Two of what may be the only serious bidders for Yum’s mammoth China Division have submitted offers — including one for just $2 billion — but have failed to reach a final agreement for a business once expected to command $10 billion, according to The Financial Times. The bidders are China-based private equity fund Primavera and Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
Primavera made the $2 billion offer for part of the franchise, people briefed on the talks said. “The bid conformed to Yum’s original conditions for the sale, but the buyout group and Yum could not agree on pricing,” the FT says.
Temasek also made an offer — the newspaper didn’t say how much — but also couldn’t reach an agreement on the 7,200 KFC and Pizza Hut units. They accounted for more than half Yum’s revenue last year.
The Louisville-based fast food giant put the China operations on the auction block last year after being pressured to do so by investors including Corvex Management founder Keith Meister. CEO Greg Creed is preparing to lead a road show that Yum expects will end with a spinoff by Oct. 31.
But the FT’s report raises doubts about the timetable, particularly after Bloomberg News reported that a consortium of the only other known bidders dropped out in May: private equity firm KKR and Chinese state investor CIC.
A company spokesperson whom the FT didn’t identify said Yum is “making great progress toward the separation of our China business,” which last year accounted for 61% of Yum’s $11.1 billion in revenue and 39% of $1.9 billion in profits.
The FT’s report was published yesterday. This afternoon, Wall Street wasn’t worried; Yum’s stock closed less than 1% higher, or 47 cents, to $89.72 — just below its record trading high of $90.38 on Monday (FT).
BROWN-FORMAN: Racing to meet consumer demand for whiskey, U.S. farmers planted 1.76 million acres of rye for the 2016-17 season, the most since 1989 and a 12% increase from a year ago. Planted in autumn and harvested in mid-summer, rye fell out of favor over the past decade as other crops produced bigger profits (Reuters).
In Nashville yesterday, Jack Daniel’s officially opened its second retail store — the first in its 150-year history outside the distiller’s corporate hometown of Lynchburg. “We get about 275,000 visitors that come see us every year, and there’s certainly a lot more people in this world, and we’d like to take Lynchburg to them,” said Dave Stang, director of events and sponsorships. The store doesn’t sell its namesake liquor :(, but does sell Jack Daniel’s-branded merchandise (News Channel 5).
Meanwhile, the Jack Daniel’s Barrel Hunt promotion is coming to South Africa as part of the distiller’s 150th anniversary — a global scavenger hunt to find 150 handcrafted barrels at historic and cultural sites (Biz Community). Clues for the next barrel, in Lithuania’s Kaunas, will be revealed tomorrow. The most recent found was in the U.K.’s Manchester; still to be found: barrels in Prague and Riccione, Italy. How the hunt works.
And Brown-Forman stockholders hold their annual meeting tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. in the company’s Louisville headquarters conference center at 850 Dixie Highway. Board Chairman Garvin Brown IV will oversee the meeting. On the agenda, according to the proxy statement:
- Electing 12 directors to the board. They include three new members initially elected this spring, all fifth-generation members of the Brown family controlling the company. They are Campbell P. Brown, Marshall B. Farrer, and Laura L. Frazier.
- Voting on a proposal to amend the Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of Class A common stock in connection with the company’s previously announced two-for-one stock split.
GE/HAIER: In Everett, Wash., a Daily Herald reader takes issue Continue reading “Yum China buyout said stalled as two bidders balk at terms; U.S. farmers binge on rye as Brown-Forman whiskey demand soars; CJ owner Gannett’s stock tanks 9% on weak Q2 results”
A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 1 p.m.
KFC plans to more than double its presence in Germany over the next five years, to 300 restaurants from 140, according to Insa Klasing, head of the chicken giant’s German subsidiary. Where most locations were major city drive-ins, “today we are also on the market with smaller restaurants,” Klasing said. But even with 300 sites, KFC will still be overshadowed by the nation’s biggest fast-food chain: McDonald’s (Europe Online). And the addition of 160 restaurants would increase total KFCs by just over a 1% vs. the current 15,000 worldwide (KFC corporate website).
In India, KFC is re-emphasizing chicken at its approximately 300 restaurants, two years after a push to sell more vegetarian burgers. In the last six months, the Yum division has rolled out three campaigns for its new chicken items, including the Chizza fried chicken slathered with cheese. During the same period, it didn’t start any new ads for vegetarian meals. KFC won’t stop selling vegetarian meals or launch vegetarian options, which still account for 30% of its India menu. But it won’t invest significantly on it either, KFC India marketing chief Lluis Ruiz Ribot said in an interview: “While chicken has always been a large part of our menu, 2016 is the year that we have refocused on our core,” he said (Quartz).
BROWN-FORMAN: In Australia, Jack Daniel’s assistant Master Distiller Chris Fletcher will host a series of master classes and tastings in Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth, as part of the Brown-Forman brand’s 150th anniversary celebrations (Au Review). BF executives toured Ontario’s Collingwood, where it distills Collingwood Canadian Whiskey, and saw first-hand the impact of a $100,000 company donation to the YMCA and a community hospital. “We work from the corporate office and a lot of the things that we do, we only get to see on paper,” said BF civil engagement manager Karen Krinock. “We knew what the ask was, but to see both the YMCA and Collingwood General and Marine Hospital was really meaningful” (Enterprise Bulletin). Louisville-based BF employs 1,300 in the city, and another 3,300 worldwide.
HUMANA: The Justice Department’s lawsuit to block the $37 billion Humana-Aetna merger on antitrust grounds seeks, ironically, to prevent what Obamacare aimed to achieve: government-directed oligopolies, according to The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “The new regulations and mandates since the law passed in 2010 are designed to encourage consolidation,” the paper’s lead editorial says. “But now the trust busters are fretting that these giants will have less incentive to innovate to reduce costs and improve quality, and patients will have fewer choices” (WSJ). Humana employs 12,500 in its Louisville hometown, and a total 50,000 across the country.
PAPA JOHN’S: In the San Francisco Bay area, prospective managers who can communicate with customers in English are especially welcome, although bilingual skills are a plus, too, according to a new Craigslist helped-wanted ad for Papa John’s in Concord, Pleasant Hill and Martinez (Craigslist). In surrounding Contra Costa County, 24.4% of the population is Hispanic vs. 23.5% for the San Francisco Bay area; 37.6% for California, and 17.6% for the nation as a whole (Census).
TACO BELL: Language skills aren’t the hiring issue at Detroit area Taco Bells, but something much more basic: Applicants “must be able to come to work on time, show up for scheduled shifts, and be productive when at work.” Also: be happy (Craigslist). Meanwhile, on Craigslist’s Missed Connections section for the Seattle area, a man is looking for a woman Continue reading “KFC to double outlets in Germany; Jack Daniel’s is going down under; Papa John’s quiere gerentes que harlan Inglis; Taco Bell wants 😀 applicants; and a UPS wedding in Fla.”
The power of free publicity illustrated right here: This Instagram won more than 10,000 likes in the first 24 hours since Taco Bell posted it.
But it’s got a long way to catch up to the 54,000 likes this one’s received since it first appeared eight weeks ago:
A sports reporter who also aggregates Taco Bell news once a week for USA Today is clearly uncomfortable with negative news swirling around the Yum unit. The writer, Ted Berg, was especially unhappy with an incident last Saturday where a Taco Bell cashier in Phenix City, Ala., refused to serve two Lee County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
“These are emotional times, the nature of which extends far beyond the scope of This Week in Taco Bell,” he writes, apparently deadly-seriously. “But this site believes firmly that Taco Bell is for the people, and that no hungry would-be Taco Bell consumer of any race, creed or occupation deserves to be denied Taco Bell unless he or she represents an obvious and imminent hazard to the safety or well-being of the other patrons or Taco Bell employees.”
Berg continues: “There’s a lot to be made of what’s going on in our world right now, and perhaps a lot that needs to be done about it. But we don’t need to make any of it about Taco Bell. Taco Bell should be a sanctuary from the never-ending onslaught of heartbreaking and awful and terrifying news we seem to face daily, not the source thereof. That those two cops wanted Taco Bell better helps me identify with and understand them, as I also want Taco Bell.”
Berg is clearly a huge, huge Taco Bell fan. Last week, he wrote about visiting the company’s southern California headquarters in Irvine, where the fast-Mexican chain made him its honorary president for the day, set him up in CEO Brian Niccol’s office “and even decorated the desk with photos reaped from my social-media history.” Berg also got to wear founder Glenn Bell’s sombrero; photo, top.
Despite the warm welcome, Berg assured readers the visit “will not color the content of the ruthless Taco Bell journalism I aim to provide.”
Berg says This Week in Taco Bell is “the Internet’s foremost source of aggregated Taco Bell content.” But we haven’t launched Boulevard publicly yet; that’ll be Aug. 1. And then, of course, we’ll grab the top mantle for our minute-by-minute, wall-to-wall, scorched-earth coverage.
Related: Follow Berg on Twitter. He’s not alone among other over-the-top Taco Bell fans: UCLA psychology student Paige Dudek got to spend her 21st birthday in May at company headquarters after writing a letter to Yum CEO Greg Creed.
And speaking of bad news, let’s recall that former Taco Bell executive who sued an Uber driver for $5 million, after viral video showed him assaulting the driver.
Boulevard 