Unum Group boosts dividend 15 percent
After reporting record profits last year, Unum Corp. said Monday it is boosting its quarterly dividend by 15 percent. Unum will pay a quarterly dividend of 23 cents per share, up from the previous quartelry dividend of 20 cents per share, on Aug. 18 to shareholders of record as of July 31.
The Chattanooga-based insurer earned a record net income of $931.4 million in 2016, up from $867.1 million in 2015, and the company said it expects after-tax operating income growth per share to be within a range of 3 percent to 6 percent this year.
Unum Group is a leading provider of financial protection benefits in the United States and the United Kingdom with revenues in 2016 of $11 billion.
UAW vote set at Nissan plant
Workers at Nissan Motor Co.’s Mississippi plant will decide on Aug. 3 and 4 whether the United Auto Workers will represent them.
The company and the UAW said Monday that they agree on the dates, subject to National Labor Relations Board approval.
Workers favoring the union say collective bargaining would improve pay and working conditions. Nissan management opposes the UAW, saying it would hurt the Canton plant’s economic competitiveness.
The union says about 4,000 production and maintenance workers should be eligible to vote.
The UAW has worked for years building support in Canton. Facing a political climate hostile to organized labor, supporters link unionization to civil rights among the plant’s majority African-American workforce. The UAW has never won a union vote at any of the South’s foreign-owned auto assembly plants.
Local gas prices stable last week
Despite a drop in the average price of gasoline nationwide, fuel prices remained unchanged in Chattanooga last week.
Average retail prices for regular gas in Chattanooga stayed at $1.91 per gallon last week, or 31 cents per gallon below the U.S. average, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga.
Chattanooga gas prices are up 9.1 cents per gallon from the same time a year ago but are 46 cents per gallon cheaper than two years ago and $1.34 per per gallon less than three years ago.
Including the change in gas prices in Chattanooga during the past week, prices yesterday were 9.1 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and are 1.8 cents per gallon lower than a month ago. The national average has decreased 5.0 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 3.3 cents per gallon higher than this day one year ago.
“Oil prices, after sagging to close the month of June, had started July by surging, only to let up shortly after,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com. “Last week, however, the market resumed the rise, posting a 5 percent weekly gain, so we’re likely again to see something of everything: gas prices rising in most areas, falling in a few, and perhaps changing little in a handful of places as well.”
FedEx recovering from TNT cyberattack
FedEx Corp. says it is still working to recover from a cyberattack that hit its European TNT Express unit, and the incident could have a material impact on its financial results.
Shares of FedEx fell 3.4 percent Monday morning but recovered about half by the close of trading.
FedEx said in a regulatory filing that the June 27 attack was causing lost revenue and higher costs for Netherlands-based TNT, which FedEx bought for $4.8 billion last year.
The so-called Petya attack spread a virus through a Ukrainian tax-software product that was used by TNT. FedEx said that all TNT facilities were running but many tasks were being performed manually and customers were experiencing delays.
Trian’s Peltz seeks P&G board seat
Activist investor Nelson Peltz is attempting to secure a seat on the board at Procter & Gamble, seeking faster changes at the consumer products company.
Peltz’s Trian Fund Management LP, which owns about $3.3 billion worth of Procter & Gamble Co. shares, said Monday that Procter & Gamble’s financial performance over the last 10 years has been disappointing.
David Taylor was named CEO of the company two years ago and P&G under his lead has attempted to transform itself, focusing on its bigger brands with growth potential. The Cincinnati-based company has already shed some of the smaller brands it says collectively contribute little to its operating profit.
But that has hurt sales, which have declined over the past three years, and the company’s share price.
Shares of P&G are up less than 4 percent this year. Rival Johnson & Johnson’s stock is up 15 percent in the same period, Colgate-Palmolive Co. is up 11 percent and Kimberly-Clark Corp. is up 9 percent.
Trian said that it’s not looking to break up P&G, replace Taylor or remove other board members.