Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, July 6, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 166 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
McLeod wants to improve brand
Southeastern Grocers CEO focusing on customers, quality, competition
By Karen Brune Mathis Managing Editor Ian McLeod, wearing the company’s T-shirt promoting donations to Wounded Warrior Project, arrived midmorning at the Lakewood Winn-Dixie to thank customers for shopping there on the Fourth of July. Some shoppers made a beeline to him when they realized who he was, with one woman saying she wanted to meet him. He likes to thank customers for their business. He wants to make it better for them. On the job just four months, McLeod wants to improve customer service, the shopping expe-
Ian McLeod
rience and the products of the chains he now leads. The former managing director of the Coles grocery chain in Australia said there weren’t any major surprises in taking the new job. But he did make some initial observations. “I could see when I looked at the stores that probably over the years they could have done with a better level of investment than they’ve had for a while and that’s something we want to address,” he said. McLeod also appreciated what he saw with the employees. “The one thing that did impress me is the associates and their loyalty to the business, and so many associates have got so
many years’ service here. They really want to see the organization continue to grow and succeed,” he said. McLeod was hired in January and took the post March 2 as the new president and CEO of what was then Bi-Lo Holdings, the Jacksonville-based parent company of Winn-Dixie, Bi-Lo and Harveys stores. Bi-Lo Holdings was formed in 2012 with the merger of WinnDixie and Bi-Lo. It changed its name in May to Southeastern Grocers LLC. McLeod said the company has grown to 80,000 employees and almost 800 stores in eight Southeastern states.
When hired, he said he wanted to build on the chains’ reputation by better serving customers, attracting new shoppers through quality and value, and to strengthen the company’s competitive position within the industry. The company says on segrocers.com it is the fifth-largest conventional supermarket in the U.S. and the second-largest in the Southeast based on store count. McLeod said the chains, in business for decades, hold a strong brand franchise with costumers. Winn-Dixie’s origin dates to 1925, and the Winn-Dixie banner was created in 1955. Harvey’s took McLeod continued on Page A-10
Photo by Fran Ruchalski
Black Knight stands out locally
An afternoon of chasing bubbles Four-year-old Sofia Ramey of Murray Hill enjoys being engulfed in a sea of bubbles at Sunday’s Art Fusion, sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville. See more photos on Page A-9.
$866,000 for public art at courthouse is record By Max Marbut Staff Writer The process to identify an artist who will receive the largest commission budget in the history of the city’s Art in Public Places Program has been initiated by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville. The $866,000 budget is derived from the 1997 ordinance that created the Art in Public Places Program by earmarking for public art 0.75 percent of the construction budget for any city building with a cost greater than $100,000. Since the program began, 18 projects have been funded and installed with a
Public
value of nearly $2.5 million. While the budget for the project represents the most allocated for a single site in the program’s history, the scale of the project and its location adds other considerations for the selection process. “The building is certainly iconic,” said Christie Holechek, Art in Public Places director. “We want the art to be as well. We’re hoping for something that will make the area around the courthouse an asset for the community.” Purchase of the artwork accounts for 85 percent of an Art in Public Places project budget; 10 percent goes to administration and 5 percent is set aside for ongoing main-
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tenance of the art. While Art in Public Places projects usually offer priority consideration to local or regional artists, Holechek said the scale of the courthouse art project will mean the cultural council will conduct an international search to identify the artist who will create the work. “This project needs a seasoned artist who has demonstrated the ability to do work on this scale,” she said. After the funds are approved by City Council, a formal Request for Quotations will be issued. Holechek said based on past experience, as many as 400 proposals Courthouse continued on Page A-10
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In a generally lackluster second quarter for the stock market, one Jacksonville company stood out, and it wasn’t even around for the full three months. Black Knight Financial Services Inc. was a big hit on Wall Street after its initial public offering May 19, rising 26 percent from its $24.50 IPO price through the end of the quarter. Web.com Group Inc. actually had a bigger gain for the second quarter, rising 27.8 percent to $24.22 over the full three months. But Web.com is playing catchup after a sharp drop in the stock in the last half of 2014 and still has a way to go. The stock was trading in the mid-$30s in June 2014 before the drop. No other Jacksonville-based company came close to those two. Black Knight, the mortgage technology and analytics company spun off from Fidelity National Financial Inc., became a widely covered company as at least 10 analysts issued initiation reports on the stock last week. Black Knight is actually more widely followed than Fidelity, according to Thomson Financial data, with 15 analysts now covering the stock. Fidelity only has 10. Analysts agree that Black Knight is an attractive company because of its dominant position in the mortgage technology business, with more than half of all U.S. first mortgage loans processed through its systems. “We view Black Knight as the leading provider of life-of-loan solutions to the nation’s largest mortgage lenders,” said a report by SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Andrew Jeffrey, who issued a “buy” rating on the stock.
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