Tag: Politics

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Amazon wants Texas tax cut, as Trump slams Bezos anew; Haier paid $125M for Appliance Park, and much ado about new KFC pulled-porker down under in Oz

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 9:34 a.m.

AMAZON is seeking tax breaks for a proposed distribution center in Houston that would lower the retailer’s taxes there to 65% for 10 years, starting Jan. 1; Harris County officials meet today to consider whether to call a public meeting on the company’s request. The $136 million facility would create 1,000 jobs and construction would start in the third quarter (Houston Chronicle). Amazon already has at least one center in Houston; it opened in 2014. In the Louisville area, it employs 6,000 at two distribution centers. What it’s like to work in one of the centers.

Presumptive GOP White House nominee Donald Trump has renewed his attack on The Washington Post and owner Jeff Bezos, after the paper called him out for trying multiple times yesterday to quietly link President Obama to this weekend’s devastating attack in Orlando. Trump has revoked the paper’s press access to his campaign, saying Bezos is using the newspaper as his personal mouthpiece to gain tax advantages for Amazon. Bezos bought the paper from its long-time owners, the Grahams, for $250 million in 2013; he owns it separately from Amazon (The Verge). Also, Amazon is getting ready to roll out its second annual Prime Day, a special 24-hour discount extravaganza for Prime members that last year exceeded its Black Friday results. It was held in July last year; the company hasn’t set a date this year yet (Street Insider).

FORD has been much less visible than competitors in forging deals with Silicon Valley partners, raising questions about whether it’s getting left behind in the race for self-driving cars and other innovations. Talks with Google this year went nowhere, while Fiat Chrysler has already forged a relationship with that technology giant. Meanwhile, Ford’s experiments with on-demand shuttles and e-bikes have been overshadowed by General Motors’ Maven car-sharing and Toyota’s alliance with Uber (Hybrid Cars).

GE: We now know what Haier paid GE’s 61-year-old Appliance Park: $125 million, according to Jefferson County Clerk Office records reviewed by Business First. Overall, Haier paid $5.6 billion for the home appliances division in a deal completed last week.

Pulled Pork Burger
Exhibit A.

KFC: Some customers are confused and angry — and even angry about that anger — after the fast food restaurant famous for fried chicken launched a $6 limited edition burger with that other white meat: pork. The sandwich of pulled pork, coleslaw and barbecue sauce on a brioche bun is available across KFC restaurants in at least Australia starting today for the next four weeks (Emmanorris Blog and EFTM ). The Ozzie KFC division posted that video at the top of this page and the photo on the left.

News about the sandwich is spreading across Twitter, with many outraged or at least annoyed over the outrage:

Boulevard sees the Australian Mafia-of-one at work: Greg Creed has been leading a KFC makeover since become CEO of corporate parent Yum in January 2015.

TACO BELL: Our foreign news story of the day is about the Mexican chain’s move into Brazil next month in the megalopolis of Sao Paulo, just in time for the summer Olympics: “Taco Bell desembarca no Brasil ainda no segundo semestre” (Clica Piaui). For those who don’t speak Portuguese, Google Translate is your friend. Facing an increasingly saturated U.S. fast-food market, the Yum unit is ramping up overseas openings, expanding to 1,000 locations by 2020 from about 280 now (Bloomberg).

PAPA JOHN’S: Three men armed with a gun and a baseball bat robbed a driver at 10 p.m. Sunday night in Magnolia, Del., taking money and his cellphone (Delaware Online).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE is hiring in Knoxville and Alcoa, Tenn., at a job fair today (WVLT).

In other news, the newly opened Speed Cinema this weekend will present this year’s Sundance Short Film Festival Tour (Insider Louisville). And on Wall Street, U.S. stocks traded lower again right after the opening bell (Google Finance).

Entrepreneurs

Schools claim freedom to study capitalism, even as big donor Schnatter praises ‘greatest mechanism’ to pursue happiness

Ball State University is the latest school to defend another multimillion-dollar gift from one of its most famous graduates, Papa John’s founder John Schnatter, to establish an institute promoting the virtues of free enterprise.

Schnatter and Koch
Schnatter and Koch.

School administrators offered similar assurances when Schnatter and the Charles Koch Foundation gave $12 million to the University of Kentucky in December and $6.3 million to the University of Louisville in March 2015, in both cases to launch free-enterprise centers. Ball State in Muncie, Ind., is getting $3.3 million.

The contract UK signed says the institute must support a “diversity of ideas,” according to the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. But it also says Continue reading “Schools claim freedom to study capitalism, even as big donor Schnatter praises ‘greatest mechanism’ to pursue happiness” →

The A-list

In Ali’s final big show, Hollywood royalty attended a sendoff worthy of a king
David Beckham
Beckham

The glittering roster of celebrities at yesterday’s Muhammad Ali memorial service is still growing, according to news reports — attesting to the enduring star power of the late prize fighter, who rocketed to global fame from a racially segregated childhood in 1940s Louisville.

Among the latest bold-face names to emerge: actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who Instagrammed a grinning selfie with eulogist and former President Bill Clinton), and David Beckham, the retired British superstar soccer player.

 

Beck’s wife, Victoria, the former Spice Girl singer, wasn’t spotted with him at the KFC Yum Center, where the number of mourners at the afternoon event ran as high as 20,000, according to Britain’s Mirror.

Whoopi Goldberg
Goldberg

Other celebrities whose attendance wasn’t previously reported included View talk show host Whoopi Goldberg; filmmaker Spike Lee; actor and former pro-football player Carl Weathers, and triple-platinum former singer Yusuf (Cat Stevens) Islam, says Britain’s Daily Mail and one of Boulevard’s Facebook friends.

They joined already known attendees, including comedian Billy Crystal, who gave one of the eulogies; actor and pallbearer Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith; Today show host Matt Lauer and former host Bryant Gumbel; retired pro boxer Mike Tyson — and the realest of royalty: King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Trump sends regrets

Rumors GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump would attend were quashed during the morning when Ali family spokesman Bob Gunnell said the reality TV star called Ali’s wife, Lonnie, to say he was unable to come, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Ali was one of the world’s most high-profile Muslims, so it’s hard to imagine Trump would have been welcome, given his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

The KFC Center service capped a week that drew tens of thousands of spectators earlier yesterday to a 23-mile funeral procession that snaked through the city — all broadcast live to millions online and on television the day he was buried. Chanting “Ali, Ali!” fans waved to celebrities riding with other Ali family guests in the 17-car motorcade. Security, which included the U.S. Secret Service, was tight; an estimated 500 Louisville police officers were there.

Ali and close family and advisors planned the funeral in secret during the final years of his decades-long battle against Parkinson’s disease. Born in Louisville’s West End in 1942, he died at 74 on June 3 in Phoenix, his primary home. He was buried yesterday at a so-far undisclosed gravesite at Cave Hill Cemetery, joining a Kentucky who’s-who of governors, business titans and other luminaries — the most famous being KFC founder Harland Sanders.

The motorcade entered Cave Hill’s iconic main entrance on a carpet of flower petals fans laid earlier in the day:
Embed from Getty Images

Money in Politics

Rand Paul’s stock portfolio jumped double-digits last year. (Also: he likes silver coins)

By Jim Hopkins
Boulevard Publisher

The value of U.S. Senator Rand Paul‘s stocks, real estate and other investments rose as much as 15% last year, according to a new analysis of his latest annual financial disclosure report.

Official Portrait
Paul

The Kentucky Republican and former White House hopeful reported assets valued at between $670,000 and $2 million, based on the pre-set ranges members of Congress use in their public reports.

On the low side, that’s up 15% from $585,000 in 2014. On the high side, it’s up a smaller 11% from $1.8 million that year, according to the report and the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan campaign finance watchdog group in Washington. In 2014, Paul, 53, ranked No. 67 among the wealthiest senators, according to the center, which  hasn’t published 2015 figures for yet. Boulevard arrived at the 2015 numbers in a recent review of his latest report, filed last month.

Paul’s report, as with other members of congress, also includes assets held by his wife Kelley Paul (photo, below) and their children. Most of the family’s investments were in stock and money market funds and real estate, with four valued as high as $250,000. There was one notable exception: a collection of silver coins valued at $15,001 to $50,000. Here’s Paul’s 2015 report, plus his 2014 report.

Paul is an ophthalmologist and U.S. senator since 2011. Earlier this year, he suspended his White House campaign after poor results in the GOP primaries.

His portfolio is dwarfed considerably by Kentucky’s other senator, Mitch McConnell. He and his wife valued their assets at between $9.6 million to $43.2 million last year. In 2014, he ranked 11th among the wealthiest members of the upper house. And Paul’s assets hardly amount to a rounding error compared to the overall richest member of Congress: Republican Rep. Darryl Issa of California, with an estimated $437 million. He built that fortune making car alarms.

Here are the Pauls in 2013, attending Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World party; the magazine included him on its list:

Embed from Getty Images
Money in Politics

Ka-ching! McConnell’s wealth jumped as much as 23% last year — to $43.2 million, new disclosure shows
McConnell,Mitch-012309-18422-jf 0024
McConnell

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and his wife saw the value of their stocks, cash and other investments climb last year, cementing his status as one of the wealthiest U.S. senators, his new financial disclosure report shows. But the source of his riches — via his wife Elaine Chao‘s immigrant father — also demonstrates the fine line the senate majority leader must walk in supporting the GOP’s presumptive White House nominee: Donald Trump.

Senators make the finance reports public each year, valuing investments according to a predetermined range. In 2015, his portfolio was worth $9.6 million to $43.2 million, according to a new Boulevard analysis. On the low side, that was a 2% increase from 2014. On the high side: a whopping 23%.

Mitch McConnell financial disclosures 2004-2015 final

The vast majority of McConnell’s wealth is held by his economist wife, Chao (photo with senator, top), whose father made a shipping trade fortune. Chao, 63, was U.S. labor secretary during the George W. Bush Administration.

Boulevard examined the senator’s latest report, filed May 16, to arrive at his 2015 estimates. The midpoint of their values would be $26.4 million vs. $22.2 million in 2014, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan watchdog group in Washington that tracks political campaign finance. The center hasn’t published estimates for 2015 yet.

But in 2014, it ranked McConnell the 11th richest senator. No. 1: Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, with an average net worth of $243 million — a fortune he built investing in telecommunications. Here are the 25 richest.

Tripping over Trump

Chao’s parents fled to Taiwan from mainland China when the Chinese Communists seized power in 1949, according to Wikipedia. In 1961, when she was eight years old, Chao immigrated to the U.S. on a freighter with her mother and two younger sisters. Her father had arrived in New York three years earlier after receiving a scholarship. He later went on to launch shipper Foremost Group.

McConnell has offered tepid support to Trump at best, citing his inflammatory anti-immigration postures. In an interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric Tuesday, McConnell said the New York billionaire’s proposals could threaten the GOP’s standing with immigrant voters. “America is changing,” he told Couric, “the Republican Party clearly doesn’t need to write off either Asian or Latino Americans, and that is not a good place to be for long-term competitiveness.”

Related: Here’s McConnell’s  report from last year, plus his 2014 report for comparison. And here’s Sen. Rand Paul’s new report, plus his 2014 report.

Money in Politics

Kentucky’s richest man is laughing all the way to the stable. (But Jack Conway isn’t)
Owner B. Wayne Hughes at Churchill Downs, 4.28.2005.
Hughes

He’s Wayne Hughes Sr. of Lexington, the 82-year-old horse breeder and retired co-founder of Public Storage, just named the state’s wealthiest resident — again — by Forbes. The magazine put his wealth at $2.6 billion, up $300 million from a year ago, after shares in the company soared 30% — far ahead of the basically flat S&P 500 index.

Hughes; his daughter, Tamara Hughes Gustavson, and son Wayne Hughes Jr., own a combined 18.1 million shares in the California-based storage chain started in 1972 — a stake worth $4.6 billion at current market prices. That’s a whopping $1.1 billion more than a year ago on the strength of the stock’s 30% jump.

Conway and Rove_edited-1
Conway and Rove

If Hughes Sr.’s name sounds familiar, it should: He’s been one of the biggest donors to American Crossroads, the conservative political action committee whose targets last year included Jack Conway — the Democratic nominee for Kentucky governor who lost big to Matt Bevin.

American Crossroads was launched six years ago by Republican strategist Karl Rove. Hughes gave the PAC nearly $6.8 million in 2010-14, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group in Washington that tracks campaign finance. The breakdown:

Wayne Hughes donations

In the 2016 election cycle, however, Hughes’ donations have been much more modest. He’s given to just two GOP campaigns: former White House hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida $2,700), and U.S. Rep. Todd Young, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate for Indiana ($5,400).  Hughes has given nothing to Crossroads.

Dividing family money

Forbes credits Hughes with $2.6 billion of his family’s overall $4.6 billion in the magazine’s new Richest Person in Every State List. But Public Storage itself says only that he and his children own it collectively, according to this year’s annual proxy report to stockholders.

Still, no matter how you slice it, Hughes is mega-rich — even if a whole lot of people are still richer. He ranks only No. 293 on the magazine’s list of 400 wealthiest Americans, and just 810 on the world’s list of 1,810 billionaires. (No. 1 on both lists is  Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, with $76 billion.)

In fact, Hughes only ties for 293rd richest American; 13 others are just as wealthy, Forbes says. In retirement, he’s Public Storage’s chairman emeritus, and owns Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, with a stable of stallions that have sired championship horses.

Lots of millionaires statewide

Although Forbes says Hughes is Kentucky’s uber-wealthiest, there are plenty of others who are merely rich: The state has an estimated 74,000 households with $1 million or more in stocks and other investible assets, according to the Phoenix Global Wealth Monitor. That’s 4.2% of the state’s 1.7 million households. If Hughes’ fortune was spread across Kentucky, everyone would get $591; more Census facts about the state.