Tag: Papa John’s

Latest Headlines

Bevin appoints Brown-Forman, Glenview Trust, other big-money heavy-hitters to new UofL board; Schnatter and Frazier raise profiles

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 10:42 p.m.

Matt Bevin
Bevin

Tightening his grip on the University of Louisville, Gov. Matt Bevin today added 10 more members to his reconfigured board of trustees, appointing a slew of business heavy hitters, including at least one with long family ties to the board.

Among them: Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter; Glenview Trust Co. founder and chairman David Grissom, who’s also a retired Humana executive; and Brown-Forman heiress Sandra Frazier.

Schnatter is a major UofL booster, donating millions for naming rights to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. He and conservative industrialist Charles Koch donated $6.3 million to the school in March 2015 to establish an on-campus center to study the virtues of free enterprise; responding to criticism, the university said the money wouldn’t curtail academic freedom.

Sandra Frazier
Frazier

Frazier, who is now cycling off the Brown-Forman board of directors, also is a director of Glenview Trust, a boutique investment firm that serves more than 500 of the area’s wealthiest families. Her late father, Harry Frazier, is a former UofL vice chairman, and her uncle, the late Owsley Brown Frazier, was once chairman.

Two other Bevin appointees are private equity and venture capitalists, according to The Courier-Journal: Dale Boden, now a partner with Weller Equity; and Douglas Cobb, who co-founded Chrysalis Ventures with David A. Jones Jr., a Humana director. Jones’ father, David Sr., co-founded Humana and is also a Glenview Trust director. The 10-member Glenview board comprises some of Louisville’s  biggest power brokers.

Here’s Bevin’s order, with the full list of appointees and their terms.

Bevin’s announcement today follows his surprise June 17 dismissal of the previous 20-seat board, which he called “dysfunctional” in its oversight of the university and President James Ramsey. He replaced them with an interim three-member board, which he filled out with today’s appointments. The school has been roiled with controversy over Ramsey’s seven-figure compensation; a sex scandal involving the marquee men’s basketball program, plus other administrative missteps. Ramsey offered to resign when Bevin dissolved the board, but a final decision on his future was deferred to the next board.

In other news: Continue reading “Bevin appoints Brown-Forman, Glenview Trust, other big-money heavy-hitters to new UofL board; Schnatter and Frazier raise profiles” →

Latest Headlines

Louisville companies snap two-day losing streak, as Dow Jones soars 269 points; and Yum China bidders reportedly bust deadline, balk at $10B valuation

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:16 p.m.

Those 10 companies tracked by Boulevard joined U.S. stocks clawing their way back from two consecutive days of steep losses, following Britain’s stunning vote last week to quit the European Union. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed moments ago at 17,410 — up 1.6%; the broader S&P 500 index jumped 1.8% to 2,036 points, and the Nasdaq climbed 2.1% to 4692.

June 28 Guardian
Today’s Guardian.

“This is going to take a long time to play out and I think the initial shock is being a little reversed right now,” Doug Cote, chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management told CNBC. “This is not 2008. It’s more like 2011.” (Read the latest Brexit developments in Britain’s Guardian.)

In Louisville, virtually all of Boulevard’s top 10 rose by the time markets closed at 4 p.m. They included Kindred, which got pounded yesterday, falling 7%. The closing prices:

Those gains came even as Ford said it expects the double-whammy of any softer post-Brexit industry and a weaker British sterling “would have an adverse impact on our operations in the long term,” a Ford spokesman told financial news site The Street. Ford also said it would issue revised 2016 guidance during its second-quarter earnings call July 28 (The Street). Ford shares have now tumbled nearly 8% since Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union — nearly twice as much as the broader S&P 500 index.

In its most recent annual report, in February, Ford warned about the impact of a possible Brexit, saying it “could cause financial and capital markets within and outside Europe to constrict, thereby negatively impacting our ability to finance our business, and also could cause a substantial dip in consumer confidence and spending that could negatively impact sales of vehicles.”

Last year, the U.K. was Ford’s single-biggest market after the U.S., accounting for 8% of the automaker’s $149.6 billion in sales:

Ford sales graphic

Ford employs nearly 10,000 workers at an auto assembly and a truck factory in Louisville.

In non-Brexit business news: At YUM, potential bidders for the fast-food giant’s mammoth China division  Continue reading “Louisville companies snap two-day losing streak, as Dow Jones soars 269 points; and Yum China bidders reportedly bust deadline, balk at $10B valuation” →

Latest Headlines

Louisville companies slammed again in Brexit fallout; Kindred falls 7% more, as Dow Jones plunges another 261 points

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:42 p.m.

Kindred headquarters
Kindred’s headquarters at 4th and Broadway; its shares got hit today.

The 10 big louisville employers tracked by Boulevard took it on the chin again, tumbling for a second consecutive day in the aftermath of Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union. Only one — Qingdao Haier, new owner of GE Appliances — gained ground, as major stock market indices fell hard. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 17,140, down 1.5%; the broader S&P 500 index ended the day at 2001, off 1.8%, and the Nasdaq slipped below 4,600, or 2.4%.

Some of the losses didn’t make sense. Hospital and nursing home giant Kindred, with no discernible exposure to overseas turmoil, dove another 7%, to $10.49 a share — even steeper than its 3.9% drop on Friday. Volume was light: 767,818 shares vs. the average 837,761, suggesting little conviction among pessimistic investors; 1.1 million shares traded Friday. Still, Kindred was easily the worst performer of the 10 today:

June 27 stocks

Papa John’s, on the other hand, fell just 1%, to $65.82, after also declining 1% Friday. That’s despite the fact its biggest foreign market is the U.K., where it has 384 company-owned and franchised stores — 26% of all 1,505 outside the U.S., according to its annual report. In total, Papa John’s had 4,893 stores at the end of last year. The company’s top 10 foreign markets . . .

Top 10 Papa John's market outside U.S

. . . and the full list of all 37 overseas.

Today’s action came after Friday, the first day Wall Street could react to Brexit. The Dow plunged 3.4% to close at 17,400; the S&P fell 3.6% to 2,037, and the Nasdaq fell the most, 4.1% to 4,708. Here’s the latest news about Brexit, finance, and business.

In non-Brexit news, Papa John’s will donate 250 pizzas a day through Thursday to victims of recent devastating floods in the Elkview and Clendenin areas of West Virginia (WSAZ). At least 25 people are dead and several more missing after the disaster caused by heavy rains Thursday. Latest flood news.

Meanwhile, visits to fast-food restaurants — which had been growing at a quarterly clip of 2% since September 2015 — stalled in March, April and May, according to as-yet-unpublished data from market research firm NPD Group (The Wall Street Journal).

Cops and Courts

In these Papa John’s holdups, ‘it sounds like they got out of control with their addiction and spending’

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants.*

Crime scene tapeSalt Lake City police arrested a man Thursday on suspicion of robbing “several” Papa John’s restaurants just outside the Utah city during a robbery spree this month involving as many as 20 businesses.

At first, Mathew Kuepper, 32, was robbing businesses about once daily, said Unified Police Lt. Lex Bell. But over the last week, police believe Kuepper was committing two or even three robberies a day to support his addiction to heroin and crack cocaine. His ex-wife, Kellie Kuepper, 31, was also arrested in connection with the alleged armed robberies.

Kellie and Matthew Kuepper_edited-1
Kellie and Matthew Kuepper.

“It sounds like they got out of control with their addiction and spending,” Bell said. Police say Mathew Kuepper displayed a firearm during each robbery. But he told detectives after his arrest that he used a “plastic toy that looked realistic,” according to the Deseret News.

Texas Roadhouse

In Paducah, police arrested 34-year-old Anthony Davis on suspicion of assaulting a Texas Roadhouse employee with a beer mug two weeks ago.

The victim told police he was walking through the restaurant when Davis hit him with the mug and kept hitting him until restaurant patrons pulled him away. The employee’s face was cut, there were cuts inside his mouth, and one of his teeth was knocked out, according to police cited by WPSD.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants in five countries. With that many locations, crimes inevitably will occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

B-F’s Welch in $183K stock transfer; and no overtime for Marta and Bruno: Tech exec develops all-robot pizza shop

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 8:53 a.m.

James Welch
Welch

BROWN-FORMAN: Retiring Director James Welch sold — sort of — 1,741 class A shares on Thursday at $105.17 each for a total $183,000, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In fact, the SEC Form 4 says, Welch surrendered the shares “to satisfy withholding obligations associated with the vesting of restricted stock upon [his] retirement” (SEC document).

PAPA JOHN’S and PIZZA HUT: A former executive at the maker of FarmVille online games has started a pizza restaurant in the heart of Silicon Valley where he hopes all pies will someday be made by robots. The process at Zume Pizza in California’s Mountain View involves two robots — named Marta and Bruno — that spread sauce “perfectly but not too perfectly, so it looks just like an artisan product,” says owner Alex Garden. The robots then move the pizza into an 850-degree oven to pre-bake. From there, the pizza is given a final bake in a bank of ovens inside the delivery truck on its way to a customer’s door. Traditional humans are still required for tasks like sprinkling cheese and driving the truck, however (Grub Street).

 

Latest Headlines

DOW PLUNGES 589 POINTS IN GLOBAL ROUT, AS INVESTORS REEL FROM BREXIT VOTE; FORD DIVES 7%; YUM, OTHER LOUISVILLE STOCKS SLAMMED

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:21 p.m.

Traders at exchange
Anxious traders at the New York Stock Exchange today (New York Times).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average cratered 3.3% this afternoon, tumbling 589 points and wiping out its year-to-date gains as fears gripped markets with Britain’s stunning vote to  leave the E.U. The broader S&P 500 tumbled 3% and the Nasdaq slumped 3.8%. Latest news.

All 10 big-employer stocks tracked by Boulevard fell sharply:

To fully appreciate the magnitude of the losses, consider Kentucky’s richest family, the Browns of Brown-Forman. They saw $201 million of their more than $6 billion in paper wealth evaporate in a matter of hours.

WSJ-1
This morning’s paper.

The impact of last night’s stunning Brexit news for Louisville employers will be greatest for those with extensive overseas footprints and currency exposure.

They include Brown-Forman, which sells 15 brands such as Jack Daniel’s in 160 countries worldwide. The U.K. is the company’s second-biggest market, accounting for 10% of fiscal 2016 sales, according to Brown-Forman’s annual report. Europe, excluding the U.K., was 21%. The U.S. is No. 1, with 46%. The company says foreign markets are increasingly important: “In fiscal 2016, we generated 54% of our net sales outside the United States compared to 41% 10 years ago.”

Other companies likely taking post-Brexit hits include Papa John’s, which operates in 39 countries; Yum in 130 countries and now reshaping overseas operations with a planned China spinoff in October; Ford, which is already reworking its European sales strategy, and Amazon, a relative newcomer abroad.

Boulevard’s Stock Portfolio companies routinely warn investors about risks of doing business outside the U.S. Papa John’s, for one, noted in its annual report that “international operations could be negatively impacted by changes in international economic, political, security or health conditions in the countries in which the company or our franchisees operate.”

Yum’s 14,600-unit KFC Division bears the biggest overseas exposure; it’s in 120 countries, with more than a third — 5,003 restaurants — in China.

uk_tg
Britain’s Guardian.

“Our business,” Yum says in its annual report, “is increasingly exposed to risks inherent in international operations. These risks, which can vary substantially by country, include political instability, corruption, social and ethnic unrest, changes in economic conditions .  . .  as well as changes in the laws and policies that govern foreign investment in countries where our restaurants are operated.”

Also, Yum warns, “results of operations and the value of our foreign assets are affected by fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which may adversely affect reported earnings.”

Boulevard’s Big 10 companies employ 63,000 workers in the Louisville area, and nearly 2 million worldwide.

In non-Brexit news; updated 5:38 p.m.: Continue reading “DOW PLUNGES 589 POINTS IN GLOBAL ROUT, AS INVESTORS REEL FROM BREXIT VOTE; FORD DIVES 7%; YUM, OTHER LOUISVILLE STOCKS SLAMMED” →