Susan Devore joins Unum board
Susan D. DeVore, president and chief executive officer of health care improvement company Premier Inc., has been elected to serve as a director of the Chattanooga-based Unum Corp.
Under DeVore’s leadership, Premier has grown into one of the nation’s largest group purchasing organizatons with alliances with 3,900 U.S. hospitals and 150,000 providers. The company raised $760.1 million in its initial pblic offier in 2013.
“We are very fortunate to have Susan joining our board,” said Kevin Kabat, chairman of the board of Unum Group. “She is a national healthcare leader with a passion for innovation and leading industries through profound change.”
DowDuPont picks three names for spinoffs
DowDuPont is announcing the names of the three businesses it will become when it breaks itself into three, eight months after the Justice Department approved a $62 billion merger between the chemical giants Dow and DuPont.
The company said Monday that its agriculture division will be called Corteva Agriscience, based in Wilmington, Delaware. The division had more than $14 billion in revenue last year.
The second company, focused on materials science, will be based in Midland, Michigan and will keep the Dow name and red diamond logo.
The third spinoff, which produces and sells specialty products, will be called DuPont. Its headquarters will also be Wilmington, Delaware.
The merger between Dow and Dupont, after being held up by regulators in the U.S. and abroad, was approved on June 15.
Georgia GOP leader blasts Delta over NRA
Georgia’s lieutenant governor on Monday threatened to prevent Delta Air Lines from getting a lucrative tax cut after the company ended its discount program with the National Rifle Association.
Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, president of the state Senate and a leading candidate to succeed Gov. Nathan Deal, tweeted that he would use his position to kill a proposed sales tax exemption on jet fuel.
“I will kill any tax legislation that benefits Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with NRA,” Cagle tweeted. “Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.”
Delta, one of the state’s largest employers, appears close to convincing lawmakers to restore a $50 million sales tax exemption on jet fuel. The proposed exemption had been part of Deal’s larger tax overhaul, which has passed the House and awaits Senate input.
Delta said in a statement that it supports the Second Amendment and its decision “reflects the airline’s neutral status” in the national debate over guns.
The airline also pointed out that last year it withdrew sponsorship from a theater than staged a controversial “Julius Caesar” production that depicted the assassination of a Donald Trump look-alike.
ACLU of Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young criticized Cagle’s move and highlighted Atlanta’s status as a finalist for the location of Amazon’s second U.S. headquarters.
“Politicians should not use taxpayer dollars to impose ideological litmus tests and punish organizations that express views that politicians dislike. Amazon should take note,” Young said in an emailed statement.