Tag: UPS

Latest Headlines June 18, 2016June 29, 2016

Raising pressure on UPS, analysts map Amazon’s own growing air delivery fleet

213046_800 — Amazon has now leased 40 of these 767 wide-bodies.

After Amazon leased 40 Boeing 767 wide-body freighters in two separate deals in March and May, Pacific Crest analysts identified seven main airports the retail goliath is now using for its home-grown air shipping service — and then pinpointed some of the routes being flown, according to Business Insider.

The airports include Covington; Allentown, Pa.; Dallas-Fort Worth; Phoenix; Ontario in Southern California and Stockton in Northern California; Tampa; and Wilmington, Ohio, 56 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

Many of those are within a 60-minute drive of Amazon distribution centers. But in Kentucky, there’s only: Hebron. Another four in the state are all closer to UPS’s mammoth Worldport hub at Louisville International Airport: Campbellsville, Lexington, Jeffersonville and Shepherdsville; those last two employ 6,000 workers. In total, those five centers make the commonwealth one of Amazon’s biggest overall distribution areas in the U.S.

The online retailer’s growing fleet saves the company an estimated $450 million a year, according to Pacific Crest. But it’s another sign one of UPS’ biggest customers could be a rival, even as the shipper expands Worldport, where it employs 22,000 workers — making it the city’s single-biggest private employer.

Outside the U.S., Amazon started competing head-on with UPS, plus FedEx and DHL this winter, after it bought the 75% of the French package-delivery company Colis Privé that it didn’t already own, according to the Seattle Times.

Even so, CEO Jeff Bezos told a high-profile technology conference three weeks ago that the retail giant isn’t aiming to compete head-on with UPS and other shippers it now partners with. Instead, Amazon wants to pick up the slack when delivery services can’t handle the final stretch.

Latest Headlines June 16, 2016June 17, 2016

$125M Appliance Park value far more than GE once claimed; Humana employees fear threat, and California UPS driver rescues world’s cutest puppy

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 7:33 p.m.

Appliance Park aerial — An aerial view shows Appliance Park.

GE sold Appliance Park to Haier Group for five times what it claimed the complex was worth in 2013, when it won a dispute with Jefferson County over the southend property’s value, a dispute that ultimately reduced the taxes the conglomerate paid. At the time, GE said the complex was worth $23 million, nearly half the $42 million value assigned by Property Valuation Administrator Tony Landauer’s office (WDRB).

HUMANA beefed up security yesterday after reports of what some employees said was a threatening graffiti message written on a bathroom wall at the insurer’s Waterside building downtown, one the company seriously enough to allow employees to go home early. The FBI is investigating the incident, said WAVE. The threat may be related to annual gay pride events planned downtown this weekend. Several employees told WLKY the graffiti referenced last weekend’s mass shooting at an Orlando gay bar, where a suspected terrorist possibly inspired by ISIS killed 50 people and injured another 50 (WAVE, WLKY and Courier-Journal).

Yesterday’s incident came after authorities arrested a Jeffersonville man arrested in California who was heavily armed and headed to a gay pride event, plus reports of possible copycat threats at a New York gay bar and in the U.K. June is gay pride month in many cities, with parades and other public festivities (Courier-Journal, Time and BBC).

BROWN-FORMAN filed its annual 10-K report with the Securities and Exchange Commission this morning; as always, a key section describes the business itself. The filing came a day after the whiskey giant disclosed how much it paid CEO Paul Varga and other top executives, plus fresh details about the value of the controlling Brown family’s $6 billion in stock holdings (SEC document).

PIZZA HUT‘S bacon-stuffed pizza has arrived in the U.K., but only for in-the-know customers. “To savour one of the new pimped-up crusts, all you need to do is whisper the secret words ‘Bacon Crust Have’ when ordering any large pizza (Mirror). Also, the chain has brought back its Triple Treat Box in a special summer edition, “a tri-level wonder decorated to look just like your favorite picnic basket” (Delish). It includes two medium one-topping pizzas, bread sticks and the just-introduced Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie (Brand Eating).

PAPA JOHN’S: In San Diego, no injuries were reported after an SUV crashed into a Papa John’s Pizza restaurant yesterday afternoon (KGTV).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE is looking for Baltimore area cooks “who are ready for a fun and rewarding career in the restaurant business.” Applicants are considered without regard to race, religion, color, age, gender, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, citizenship, national origin, or any other legally protected status (Craigslist). Apparently, gender expression hasn’t made that list — yet.

UPS: In northern California, a UPS driver who happened to be on the scene rescued a crazy-cute puppy dumped Tuesday evening in the street by a passing vehicle. The Modesto Bee identified the driver as 39-year-old Jason Harcrow of Hughson. Police said the puppy, believed to be a Cairn terrier less than a year old, was in great spirits and would be put up for adoption at the county shelter (KPIX). The driver who abandoned the pup is expected to spend eternity in hell with tobacco lobbyists.

In other news, U.S. stocks closed slightly higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other indices up less than 1% (Google Finance). Among Boulevard’s 10 big Louisville employers, Papa John’s performed best, closing at $65.89, up 2%. And on the A-list front, there was no news of any consequence about Louisville native and Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence.

Latest Headlines June 13, 2016June 14, 2016

Amazon hit with proposed $350K fine for shipping hazardous package that hurt nine UPS workers

The Federal Aviation Administration’s penalty requested today is the largest the agency has sought against Amazon, which it says has had a series of at least 24 hazardous materials violations in recent years.

Amazing Fire drain cleaner The FAA claims the retailer sent a UPS package on Oct. 15, 2014, with a one-gallon container of “Amazing! LIQUID FIRE,” a corrosive drain cleaner for transportation by air from Louisville to Boulder, Colo., according to an agency press release. The cleaner contains sulfuric acid, which can cause serious burns, including permanent blindness on contact.

The package leaked and nine UPS employees who came into contact with the cardboard box were treated after feeling a burning sensation, the FAA said. The agency didn’t say where the UPS employees worked, and it didn’t say how the drain cleaner arrived in Louisville. UPS has 22,000 employees in Louisville, making it the area’s single-biggest private employer.

Amazon declined to answer questions about the incident, according to Reuters, and UPS said the workers were fine after treatment.

The FAA said the shipment was improperly packaged, not accompanied by a declaration for dangerous goods, and not properly labeled to indicate the hazardous contents, according to an agency press release.

Boulevard found an identically described product sold by N.J. Wholesale Supply for $102 for a case of 12 32-oz. bottles. The company says in red, capital letters that it can only be shipped by freight. It contains sulfuric acid, according to the site. We also found it on Amazon’s website, but the product description doesn’t mention sulfuric acid. It advises buyers to “read the label for warnings and directions before using.”

In high concentrations, sulfuric acid can cause very serious damage upon contact, including chemical burns, permanent blindness if splashed onto eyes and irreversible damage if swallowed, according to Wikipedia, which cites chemical maker BASF.

The FAA didn’t detail any of the other 24 hazardous materials violations it said Amazon had committed. Amazon has 30 days from receipt of the FAA’s enforcement letter to respond to the agency.

Latest Headlines June 8, 2016July 19, 2016

Taco rises, Chipotle plunges in new survey; Yum sets China spin for Oct. 31; Aetna: DOJ wants more info, but deal on track

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 5:30 p.m.

Taco Bell store front — Taco revamped menu this year to include breakfast.

TACO BELL ranked No. 2 among fast-casual Mexican restaurants in the annual Harris Poll restaurant brand survey, published today, right behind Moe’s Southwest Grill. Last year, the Yum unit tied for No. 3. Meanwhile, Chipotle — hit hard this year by stubborn health scares at some restaurants — got knocked down to No. 5; it had topped the list the past three years (Harris). Moe’s is owned by the same company that operates shopping mall mainstays Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon. (USA Today).

In horrific allegations in Houston, three teenagers say Taco Bell employees stabbed one of them, then burnt the other two with hot grease — accusations the company disputes (CW 33and Houston Chronicle). And in Wisconsin, a 25-year-old Village of Waterford man is facing the possibility of more than three years in prison after allegedly passing out in the drive-thru of a Waukesha Taco Bell last week and physically refusing arrest (Journal Times).

BROWN-FORMAN said Michael McShane, a senior vice president overseeing the Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia regions, is retiring Oct. 31. The spirits and wine giant didn’t disclose details about replacing him. McShane’s 17-year career started in 1999 as finance director for Brown-Forman Beverages based in Sydney after serving in a variety of roles for Swift & Moore, then distributor for Brown-Forman in Australia (press release). Also, a transcript is now available for the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call yesterday (Seeking Alpha).

YUM has set Oct. 31 as the date it plans to formally split itself into two publicly traded companies when it cleaves the mammoth China division away under pressure from activist investor Corvex Management. CEO Greg Creed said yesterday his team would begin a road show in early October to pitch the split to prospective investors (The Street). Yum shares closed at $83.73, down less than 1%.

HUMANA: Aetna president Karen Lynch told analysts at a Goldman Sachs health care conference the Hartford insurer is giving the Justice Department “a lot of information” in response to a second request, amid the agency’s review of the planned $37 billion acquisition of Humana. But she didn’t detail the nature of the agency’s additional request. Lynch said the deal still remains on track to close later this year (Hartford Courant).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE shares closed at $46.54, up 15 cents, after hitting an intraday high of $46.81. It was the second consecutive day shares closed at an all-time high. The casual steak house chain’s stock has soared 27% in the past year vs. a slim 1% gain in the S&P 500 index (Google Finance). Since opening in 1993, the company has grown to more than 460 locations in 49 states and five international locations in the Middle East (company fact sheet).

GE will pay eligible workers a “closing payment” of $800 following the $5.6 billion sale of the company’s home appliances business to China’s Haier. Also, those who lose jobs within the first year after the sale will get preferential placement at other GE locations. The sale closed Monday, ending a 61-year chapter in Louisville’s economic history. The IUE-CWA union and Haier have agreed to honor terms of the current contract with about 6,000 Appliance Park workers while a new one is being negotiated (WDRB). Monday’s sale also included GE’s 1,200-employee refrigerator factory in Decatur, Ala. (Decatur Daily News). Haier and other Chinese multinationals setting up factories in the U.S. are attracted to America’s stable social, political, and legal environments. Haier completed its $5.6 billion acquisition of GE Appliances on Monday, part of a wave of such investments totaling more than $15 billion last year (Rutgers University).

UPS: Prosecutors in Las Vegas have dropped charges against a paraplegic man accused May 21 of robbing a UPS driver of a cellphone and scanner, and then running from the scene, conceding his disabilities would have made that impossible. But the prosecutor’s move didn’t come until after Antwine Hunter spent two weeks in jail (Review-Journal).

In other news, in a move with big implications for The Courier Journal, the top editor at USA Today, David Callaway, is leaving to become CEO of financial news site The Street, effective July 1; the paper has started a search for his replacement (USA Today).

Callaway had been at the paper four years, a period during which it assumed growing influence over the CJ Continue reading “Taco rises, Chipotle plunges in new survey; Yum sets China spin for Oct. 31; Aetna: DOJ wants more info, but deal on track” →

Latest Headlines June 8, 2016June 29, 2016

Brown-Forman jumps 4% on Q4 financial results; N.Y. says UPS illegally shipped 700K cartons of untaxed cigs; and a Brit’s bonkers for Roadhouse

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 6:17 p.m.

BROWN-FORMAN said fiscal fourth-quarter operating income soared to $726 million on sales of $933 million, on the continued strength of Jack Daniel’s whiskey sales. But the figures included a one-time $485 million gain from the sale of Southern Comfort and Tuaca during the quarter, which ended April 30. On a diluted per-share basis, earnings were $2.60 per share vs. 66 cents a year ago at the spirits and wine giant (press release and the SEC 8-K). What analysts had forecast. The company’s class A and class B shares both closed up 3.5% (Google Finance). CEO Paul Varga called the fiscal year “a tale of two halves,” with emerging market sales rising by 8% in the first half of the year before paring that decline to 1% in the second half (Wall Street Journal). Management held a 10 a.m. conference call to discuss the results, and it’s now available for replay. More about Brown-Forman.

UPS: New York’s attorney general yesterday accused UPS of knowingly shipping about 700,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes from Native American reservations to consumers and smoke shops between 2010 and 2014, even though the company had agreed to halt the practice more than a decade ago. UPS denied the allegation (Associated Press).

AMAZON will invest another $3 billion in its India operations, more than doubling its prior commitment in what CEO Jeff Bezos said yesterday is the company’s fastest-growing market. Two years ago, the online retail giant announced a $2 billion investment in the nation, where it already employs 45,000 workers. Bezos disclosed the news at a Washington business summit attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (BBC and International Business Times). Amazon didn’t help its efforts when consumers threatened a boycott over the company’s selling doormats bearing the image of the Hindu gods and other religious symbols; the company pulled the items this week (Mashable).

KINDRED: Jurors heard opening statements yesterday in a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital and nursing home giant, brought by the family of a man who died in 2011 at the Greenbriar Terrace nursing home in Nashua, N.H. Byam “Bing” Whitney Jr. had developed pneumonia, followed by bedsores that led to sepsis; he was 84 (Union-Leader).

PAPA JOHN’S: A Miami delivery driver filed another proposed class-action lawsuit against 31-store franchiser Pizzerias LLC in Florida federal court on Monday, accusing the company of shorting drivers on mileage reimbursements (Law 360). In August, Papa John’s agreed to pay $12.3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of underpaying mileage reimbursements to drivers in Florida and five other states. That suit was originally filed in federal court in St. Louis in 2009, and represented about 19,000 drivers (KYCIR).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE: Noted, because it popped up in Boulevard’s news search results this morning: TripAdvisor users rated Texas Roadhouse No. 21 of 194 restaurants in St. George, Utah. “This was possibly our best meal out of the four that we had in St George,” user Tired Boy of the U.K.’s Sheffield wrote yesterday, in a perfect five-star review. “Some people may feel that they don’t like the chain restaurant scene, but it was our first time there and we’d definitely go back again” (TripAdvisor). St. George is a Mojave Desert resort in the state’s southwest corner.

In other news, U.S. stocks closed the day up modestly, as did most of the 11 big employers in Boulevard’s Stock Portfolio (Google Finance). Finally, the cast of “The Phantom of the Opera” was to pay tribute to the late boxing legend Muhammad Ali this afternoon at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, where it began a 12-day run last week; Ali died last week at 74, and his funeral will be Friday (WDRB).

Entrepreneurs June 7, 2016June 16, 2016

The 11-year-old boy’s dream that became Louisville’s single-biggest private employer

UPS Worldport — UPS started its hub at Louisville International Airport in 1982.

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

The first time many people in Louisville heard of United Parcel Service was in a May 1938 issue of The Courier-Journal, when syndicated columnist Dale Carnegie wrote about 11-year-old James E. Casey walking down a sidewalk in Seattle, and catching sight of a Special Delivery wagon pulled by a team of high-stepping horses.

James Casey — Casey in an undated photo.

“I’m going to have a team of horses and deliver things for people,” Casey said that day in 1899, in Carnegie’s retelling. Casey eventually started the American Messenger Co. with seven boys delivering packages by bicycle.

By the time Carnegie’s column appeared, the company was called United Parcel Service and employed 2,500 employees delivering as many as 500,000 packages a day during the Christmas rush.

Nearly 80 years later, UPS has become a giant in shipping worldwide, with Louisville the heart of a global network of 12 major air hubs. It employs 22,000 workers at the Worldport hub at Louisville International Airport. It’s the biggest fully automated package handling facility in the world, according to UPS. It turns over approximately 130 aircraft daily, processing an average of 1.6 million packages a day, with a record of nearly 5 million packages processed on peak day 2013.

(If it was a city, Worldport would rank as Kentucky’s 17th biggest by population — one rung ahead of Radcliff in Hardin County.)

UPS has had a hub in Louisville since 1982, when it was expanding into air service to meet growing demand for faster delivery. Louisville was a logical choice because it’s centrally located in the U.S. Since then, it’s been through two $1 billion expansions here. Driven by growing demand for e-commerce, especially via Amazon, UPS announced plans in May 2016 to spend another $300 million to boost capacity.

This time-lapse video shows some of the activity that takes place during each sort.

Founder Casey died in 1983, at age 95. Today, UPS is headquartered in Atlanta. Its $58 billion in revenue last year ranked it No. 48 on the Fortune 500 list of biggest companies. Worldwide, it has 440,000 employees. It’s been a publicly traded company since November 1999. David Abney has been chairman and CEO since 2014.

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