A news summary focused on big employers; updated 8:33 a.m.
Schnatter
PAPA JOHN’S: Two super-strong thieves were caught on video dragging a 600-pound safe with $1,300 from a Papa John’s in Edinburgh on Monday, leaving police baffled (Mirror). CEO John Schnatter‘s frequent helicopter trips to and from his property in tony Anchorage have caused enough noise for some neighbors to write complaint letters to the city (WDRB). (Terrific story, BTW!)
AMAZON: Walmart is testing a two-day shipping subscription service and building a regional delivery network as the retail giant takes on Amazon (Wall Street Journal).
KFC launches program in India to fight childhood hunger (Times of India).
GE has signed a three-year contract to be exclusive appliance provider for developer Perry Homes of Houston (Business First).
HUMANA: Aetna doesn’t have any plans to leave Obamacare exchanges in 15 states — and may, in fact, expand; Aetna has agreed to buy Humana for $37 billion (Wall Street Journal).
In other news: Walmart and its charitable arm have donated more than $22 million to Kentucky non-profits in the past fiscal year (WDRB). A candy store will open May 23 in the former Why Louisville space on Bardstown Road (WDRB, too).
With revenue down, CafePress’ CEO has a turnaround plan; shares closed yesterday at $3.13, dead even, but down 33% from a year ago (Business First). U.S. stock futures were poised to open up as oil prices traded near 2016 highs (CNBC).
Pizza Hut conquers Africa’s highest mountain peak: 19,347 feet.
A news summary, with a special focus on big Louisville employers; updated 11:34 a.m.
PIZZA HUT set a new Guinness World Record for highest-altitude pizza delivery when it successfully carried a pie to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro on Sunday, a stunt marking the company’s expansion today into its 100th country: Tanazania. Over four days, the Yum division used an airplane, a motor vehicle, professional hikers and a backpack to deliver the pepperoni with extra cheese to the summit of Africa’s highest mountain (CNN).
CHURCHILL DOWNS says there’s no connection between the company and an entity with a similar-sounding name among more than 320,000 offshore accounts and trusts unveiled in a “Panama Papers” database Monday (WFPL). What happens when you bet $24 at the Derby without checking the odds again (The Billfold).
TACO BELL: Police in Santa Ana, Calif., bought a 31-year-old employee with cerebral palsy a new $500 adult-size tricycle to get to work after thieves stole his previous one last week; watch the video (KABC). In Ohio, video of a Taco Bell employee’s act of kindness — using sign language to help a customer — is rolling across the Web (WEWS).
KFC remains optimistic about India, despite slower sales (Business Standard). Chick-fil-A’s average sales per restaurant in 2014 were $3.1 million. Rival KFC sold $960,000 per restaurant that year (Business Insider); full rankings (QSR Magazine).
FORD thinks the driverless cars of tomorrow could come with their own drones (Detroit News).
In other news, Staples and Office Depot have called off their merger over anti-trust concerns; Staples has five stores in Louisville, and Office Depot has two (MarketWatch). An atheists group wants to spend $10,000 on billboards protesting a northern Kentucky Noah’s Ark theme park set to open in July, but can’t find anyone to take its business (Courier-Journal).
Fieri
Vietnamese street food restaurant Pho Ba Luu is headed for Market Street in NuLu (Broken Sidewalk). Food Network star Guy Fieri is planning a new restaurant chain, Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse, with the first to open Sept. 9 at Fourth Street Live (Courier-Journal). Kroger needs to fill 14,000 open jobs nationwide (WDRB).
A news summary, with a special focus on big Louisville employers; updated 11:01 a.m.
AMAZON and Tyson Foods are close to launching a ready-to-cook ingredients delivery service, akin to what Blue Apron and HelloFresh do, showing the e-commerce company’s growing ambition in the grocery and food business (Business Insider). Restoration Hardware, Land’s End and other retailers are getting into Prime membership-like plans (CBS). As Amazon gets into air delivery, is it time to sell UPS shares (The Street)?
PIZZA HUT is adding 200 stores and about 3,000 jobs across the UK. The expansion will cost £40 million ($57 million U.S.) and a quarter of the stores will be Pizza Hut “Express” formats (Independent). Pizza Hut already has more than 14,100 restaurants and 300,000 employees in nearly 100 countries, excluding the Yum China division; those are about 59% of Yum’s total 505,000 workers (company website).
FORD has filed for a patent for an invention producing artificial noises that make it sound like more cylinders are working, leading drivers to be more fuel-efficient (Markets Daily).
TEXAS ROADHOUSE: In a lawsuit, an Iowa man has accused the company of negligence after he slipped on peanut shells on a Cedar Falls restaurant floor and shattered his knee in February 2015. The steakhouse chain serves buckets of peanuts to customers, and encourages them to throw the discarded shells on the floor, creating a hazard, the suit says (Des Moines Register).
UPS said shareholders re-elected all 11 members of the board of directors during their annual meeting. But stockholders voted down three shareholder proposals, including one on “Holy Land Principles” that would govern the shipper’s Israeli-Palestinian employment practices (SEC filing).
KINDRED has filed its quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (10-Q filing).
“I visited Apple in the Steve Jobs era while I was president of Taco Bell and showed some people the latest restaurant design at the time. Their comment was that we had too much going on and had lost the brand’s essence. As a result, we took a step back and simplified Taco Bell’s restaurant design.”
A news summary, with a special focus on big Louisville employers; updated 1:10 p.m.
HUMANA is dropping individual insurance products in at least four states (Business First).
KROGER is dropping a controversial plan to change the way alcohol companies get their products onto its store shelves (Business Courier).
PIZZA HUT: Reviewers taste-tested the new bacon- and cheese-stuffed crust. The verdict: mixed, with the biggest complaint being it was “too greasy and heavy” (BusinessInsider).
TACO BELL and Snapchat teamed up for a special Cinco de Mayo promotion yesterday (AdWeek).
In other news, U.S. stocks slipped on a weaker-than-expected monthly jobs report (Reuters and Google Finance). Among big local employers, Kindred fell the most, recently trading for $13.11, down 2.5%.
News about business and culture in Louisville, Ky.
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