VOL. 37 | NO. 33 | Friday, August 16, 2013
Before his fall, Jody Faison dominated Nashville’s restaurant scene. Act 2: New law practice, fresh outlook
In his heyday, Jody Faison’s employees called him “King,” and Faison indeed ruled – and, in many ways, created – Nashville’s modern-day restaurant scene.
When Jody Faison launched Faison’s in the early 1980s, he essentially founded the Nashville independent restaurant landscape, several longtime Nashville food industry veterans say.
So where does Jody Faison, the one-time Restaurant King of Nashville, send his friends for dinner these days?
Like most newly-minted law school graduates, Olatayo Atanda wants to make meaningful impact in his community. He’s off to a good start.
REAL ESTATE
Rising interest rates are putting the brakes on home sales across the country this summer, but the Nashville region has the opposite problem. There are too many buyers and not enough houses for sale.
Top June 2013 residential real estate transactions for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
REALTY CHECK
Putting a house on the market can be frightfully maddening. Having a group of people with varying tastes, interests and needs evaluate and – even worse – opine on the condition of something that has been loved and nurtured by the homeowner can be even more disheartening.
NEWSMAKERS
J. Alexander’s LLC, operator of J. Alexander’s restaurants and Stoney River Legendary Steak restaurants, has announced the promotion of Mark A. Parkey to vice president and CFO. He was most recently vice president and controller of J. Alexander’s Corporation.
TERRY McCORMICK
Once upon a time the Tennessee Titans were regarded as a reasonably talented team that could only go as far as a young and erratic quarterback could take them.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
By now, you should be used to hearing “no.”
GUERRILLA MARKETING
Forty-one percent of CMOs and CEOs report inbound marketing produced a measurable ROI in 2013, with half indicating an increased spend this year, according to HubSpot’s fifth annual State of Inbound Marketing Report.
THE WORLDLY INVESTOR
Now that earnings season has essentially ended, the stock market needs a new muse.
SMART STUFF 4 WORK
Most traffic lights use a three-color system – red, yellow and green – in an attempt to control the flow of traffic through an intersection. Red, in this case, is the traffic light color that instructs moving vehicles to stop. This seems to be a simple system, and it is simple on the surface.
I SWEAR
Sometimes, we must go back to our roots. The roots of “I Swear,” the column, are in the actual dialogue between lawyers and people who are under oath. Those who, in essence, tacitly add “I swear” to everything that they say.
KAY'S COOKING CORNER
MIDSTATE
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — One of the world's most famous whiskey-makers is getting a $100 million shot in the arm.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose in early trading on Wall Street after encouraging economic figures from Asia and Europe boosted the outlook for global growth.
LONDON (AP) — Solid economic figures out of China and Europe helped lift the mood in financial markets Thursday in a week when investors have been largely fretting over when the U.S. Federal Reserve will start to reduce its monetary stimulus.
Benchmark oil for October delivery reversed early losses and was up 65 cents to $104.51 per barrel by late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dropped $1.26 to close Wednesday at $103.85.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21
NATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve appears on track to slow its bond purchases by the end of this year if the economy continues to improve. But it remains divided over the exact timing of the move.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell sharply Wednesday after the Federal Reserve disclosed that its top officials were mostly in agreement that the central bank should end its massive bond-buying program.
NEW YORK (AP) — Target Corp. muted its annual profit forecast Wednesday after reporting a 13 percent drop in second-quarter profits as the cheap-chic retailer deals with cautious shoppers.
BANGKOK (AP) — The price of oil fell again Wednesday as traders hunkered down and waited for news of when the U.S. economy might be weaned off the Fed's stimulus program.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. sales of previously occupied U.S. homes surged in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million, approaching a healthy level for the first time since November 2009. The spike in home sales shows housing continues to drive the economy.
AUTO INDUSTRY
COLUMBUS, Ind. (AP) — Cummins Inc. plans to add 500 jobs over several years to build V8 turbo diesel engines for Nissan Motor Co.'s next generation Titan pickup truck, the Columbus-based engine maker said Tuesday.
NATIONAL POLITICS
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is making a trip down south on Friday to hit a fundraiser in Tennessee and then give a speech in Alabama.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE — To see the future of Dollywood, you need to borrow the vision of its chief imaginer, Dolly Parton.
NASHVILLE (AP) — This year's Tennessee high school graduates have fallen short of national results for ACT college readiness benchmarks.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20
NEW YORK (AP) — It's been a chilly August for the stock market.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing mostly higher on Wall Street after better results from Best Buy and other retailers.
Oil drops 2 percent as Fed policy signal awaited
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Sen. Lamar Alexander's efforts to ward off a primary challenge from the right fell short Tuesday with Tennessee state Rep. Joe Carr's announcement that he will mount a tea party challenge for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
REGION
NASHVILLE (AP) — The organization that sanctions the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration has decided to adopt the minimum soring penalties proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
MONDAY, AUGUST 19
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks dropped for a fourth day in a row Monday as investors continued to express worry about the recent rise in bond yields. Banking stocks also dragged down the broader market.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil fell for the first time in more than a week Monday, slipping near $107 a barrel.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a warren of offices at a former bank building near Madison Square Garden, dozens of journalists are at work on gleaming new electronic equipment, ready to turn their test runs of Al-Jazeera America into the real thing.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam says he supports a decision by the Tennessee Board of Education to delay the implementation of new rules on teacher licensure until 2015.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tea party groups in Tennessee and national conservative organizations are looking for a primary election candidate to challenge U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander.
NASHVILLE AREA
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An American soldier has been charged with taking part in an alleged scheme to divert fuel trucks from a military base in Afghanistan to others in exchange for money.
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) — The NCAA has ruled that a Middle Tennessee football player who spent five years in the Marines will be allowed to compete this fall and that he will have four years of eligibility remaining.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16
Last Friday night, Don and I had a funeral visitation we had to attend around six o’clock. Afterwards, since we were pretty “dressed-up” and all, we decided to make it a date night. After all, who wants to be showered and dressed on a Friday night for only about an hour? We felt like we needed to take advantage of the situation.
NASHVILLE AREA
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Deane, Smith and Partners, a public relations, marketing, advertising and branding agency based in Nashville, has opened an office in Mississippi's capital city.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A school superintendents group says nearly four dozen Tennessee public school districts would have appealed coding errors relating to TCAP test results if that were an option.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Former state Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester is bringing ethics and campaign-finance complaints against Gov. Bill Haslam for failing to disclose how much he has paid his former chief campaign strategist for political advice in the years following the 2010 election.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam is awarding more than $1.6 million in grants to improve Tennessee parks and recreational areas.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee has once again received a national award for its annual state budget document.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Primary Care Association and Structured Employment Economic Development Corporation are two organizations that will be helping Tennessee residents understand their new insurance opportunities and get signed up.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top federal judges in 49 states are urging lawmakers to avoid another round of automatic spending cuts that would have a "devastating and long-lasting impact" on the federal courts.
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Wisconsin-based nonprofit association of atheists and agnostics says it has filed a complaint against a Tennessee magistrate for changing a baby's name from Messiah to Martin.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Ford will reduce gas mileage estimates for its C-Max hybrid, following a government investigation into consumer complaints that the car's actual mileage was lower, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks ended a tough week on a down note Friday, hurt by retailers and companies that are sensitive to rising interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average had its worst week of the year.
The price of oil rose for the sixth consecutive day Friday on continuing violence in Egypt and supply disruptions elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.
NEW YORK (AP) — AOL Inc. is laying off up to half the workforce at its Patch local news sites and shuttering or consolidating roughly 150 of the 900 sites while looking for partners for others.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A Delaware judge on Friday dealt a blow to activist investor Carl Icahn's effort to stop CEO and founder Michael Dell's $24.8 billion buyout offer for the struggling computer maker.
NEW YORK (AP) — Electric bills have long been take-it-or-leave-it affairs: Pay one rate for all the power you used the month before, no matter when you used it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. developers broke ground on homes at a faster pace in July. But the rise was all due to apartment construction, which is typically volatile. By contrast, builders began work on fewer single-family homes — the bulk of the market — and sought fewer permits to build them.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. worker productivity accelerated to a still-modest 0.9 percent annual pace between April and June after dropping the previous quarter.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for American Airlines pressed a judge Thursday to approve the company's plan to merge with US Airways and exit bankruptcy protection, but the judge delayed a ruling because of the federal government's lawsuit against the merger.
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook plans to test a mobile payments service that lets users make purchases inside mobile applications using payment information they have added to their account on the social network.
LANCASTER, Ohio (AP) — Through 80 summers, drive-in theaters have managed to remain a part of the American fabric, surviving technological advances and changing tastes that put thousands out of business. Now the industry says a good chunk of the 350 or so left could be forced to turn out the lights because they can't afford to adapt to the digital age.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Dell's woes worsened during its most recent quarter as the slumping personal computer maker resorted to rampant price cutting to slow a sales decline driven by a growing reliance on smartphones and tablets to connect to the Internet and perform other technological tasks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits dropped 15,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 320,000, the fewest since October 2007 — a sign of dwindling layoffs and steady if modest job growth.
Confidence among U.S. homebuilders is at its highest level in nearly eight years, fueled by optimism that demand for new homes will drive sales growth into next year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average rates on U.S. long-term fixed mortgages remained steady for a second straight week, giving prospective home buyers more time to lock in historically low levels.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A promise to help power the first family's residence with the sun is finally seeing the light of day.
NATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A high-profile bipartisan task force chaired by former governors and Cabinet secretaries endorsed eventual citizenship for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally as part of a package of recommendations Thursday.