Tag: Yum

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” →

Cops and Courts

A dangerous mix: brandy ‘shooters,’ two boyfriends, and one angry woman

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

KFC

Crime scene tapeIn Athens, Ga., 30-year-old Tina Gail Anderson was arrested after she showed up drunk with her current boyfriend at her former boyfriend’s KFC workplace,
called for him to come outside, and then drove recklessly in the restaurant’s parking lot.

When police arrived, they saw Anderson driving over a curb and into the parking lot of Ingles next door, according to a police report cited by the Athens Banner-Herald.

After Anderson was stopped, police said they found empty “shooter” bottles of brandy in her car, along with an open pint bottle of the liquor, the newspaper said.

Taco Bell

In upstate New York’s Genesco, two men who already had a string of misdemeanors were charged by police with three more on Saturday, after they allegedly crashed their U-Haul truck into a Taco Bell restaurant awning, then drove off after causing minor damage.

One of the men, Ricky Jackson, 49, had 15 suspensions on his expired permit, plus an active bench warrant for misdemeanor petit larceny, according to WHEC. After driving off, Jackson then returned to the scene and allegedly told a cop he watched police investigate from afar (which seems weird, right?).

* 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

Saturday night dive: a bad one for Pizza Hut, after a good one for Roadhouse; and Jack Daniel’s reveals a hard truth

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 6:36 p.m

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In an undated photo, Jack Daniel — center, in white hat — and to the left, a man who could be a son of Nearis Green, a slave who taught Daniel how to make whiskey.

PIZZA HUT: In Memphis, police are investigating why an officer shot and critically wounded a suspect around 11:10 last night in front of a Pizza Hut, after a caller reported two men were robbing a driver there. One suspect was shot and taken to the Regional Medical Center in critical condition. The second suspect fled; it’s unknown if he was also hit (Commercial Appeal).

In Ohio, Harrison Township deputies were investigating a break-in at a Pizza Hut early this morning; reports indicate a cash register from the business was located by deputies, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether burglars were able to get away with anything (WHIO).

And in northern Delaware yesterday, two armed men confronted a male clerk closing a Pizza Hut in Bear at 1 a.m., demanding cash from the register. The clerk complied and turned over an undisclosed amount. The suspects then fled the store; no injuries were reported (Delaware Online). BTW: Yelp reviewers don’t like the Bear restaurant one bit.

BROWN-FORMAN‘s Jack Daniel’s unit is using its 150 anniversary celebrations this year to talk candidly about its history: the founder learned his craft from a slave named Nearis Green. “This version of the story was never a secret,” The New York Times says today, “but it is one that the distillery has only recently begun to embrace, tentatively, in some of its tours, and in a social media and marketing campaign this summer” (New York Times).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE‘s new restaurant in Roanoke, Va., drew 350 diners when it opened last week for the first time. But managing partner Eric Grow wasn’t surprised in the least, “even though there was very little spectacle at the opening — no formal ribbon cutting or announcement,” says the Roanoke Times. “A few weeks ago he began switching on the building’s LED lights. The first night he did this, he estimates the restaurant got more than a hundred calls asking if it was open yet” (Roanoke Times).

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.

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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” →

Media and Marketing

KFC debuts an ‘extra crispy’ Col. Sanders impersonator

And it’s perpetually tanned George Hamilton, the fourth actor to play KFC founder Harland  Sanders since the chain revived his character last year.

The new commercials start airing Sunday, KFC says in a press release. Jim Gaffigan, who followed Norm MacDonald and Darrell Hammond, will continue as Sanders in marketing for Original Recipe chicken.

The campaign by Wieden+Kennedy will include four spots — two at 30 seconds, and two at 15 seconds — all airing nationally. The ads feature Hamilton as the colonel with an exaggerated suntan to emphasize his “extra crispy” character.

“I like to think that I know a thing or two about being extra crispy,” Hamilton said in the press release. “One could argue that my entire career has been leading up to this role.”

This isn’t the first time Hamilton, 76, has agreed to do a self-mocking TV spot. In 2003, he promoted oven-toasted Ritz Chips and toasted Pita Thins.