Local business investors open Flying Locksmiths
Three Chattanooga investors have opened a local franchise of The Flying Locksmiths, a family-owned locksmith chain that was founded in 1946 and has expanded to more than 90 markets.
Clay Crumbliss, Bruce Crumbliss and Stephanie Young are now affiliated with The Flying Locksmiths, opening a locally owned business at 2212 Encompass Drive near Highway 153 and Shallowford Road. From standard or mechanical locksmithing services (key production and lock repair/replacement) to access control installation, Flying Locksmiths provides certified and licensed technicians in a 15-county area of Chattanooga.
“Our clients are not ‘jobs’ but rather, personal relationships we cultivate and invest in to establish accountability and trust along with superior customer service,” said Clay Crumbliss, president of the company that began operations in October.
The Flying Locksmiths, which features “Buzz the Pilot” atop its vehicles, has more than 300 locksmiths in its internal network and is available 24/7.
Mastercard drops name uses only picture logo
What’s in a name? For MasterCard, not enough to keep it in the logo.
The company is removing the word Mastercard from the pair of interlocking red and yellow circles where it has resided for more than 50 years.
Mastercard Inc. joins a small stable of brands like Nike, Apple and Target that rely on an image and not a name in most marketing materials. The Purchase, New York, company said Monday that 80 percent of people recognize the Mastercard logo even when its name isn’t present.
A picture communicates better than words,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing strategy firm Metaforce. “And they have the distinct advantage of having one of the most recognizable icons in the world.”
World Bank head abruptly resigns
The World Bank said Monday that its president, Jim Yong Kim, would step down from his post in February to join a private infrastructure investment firm, an unexpected departure that comes nearly three years before the end of his term.
The abrupt resignation, which is effective Feb. 1, could prompt a clash between the Trump administration and other governments over the future of the international body. The United States traditionally selects the president of the World Bank, which is made up of more than 100 countries, but President Donald Trump has taken a skeptical view about the importance of multilateral institutions. The World Bank’s priorities – like combating climate change and engaging in foreign aid – also tend to be at odds with those of the Trump administration. Last month, the bank announced it would invest $200 billion toward fighting climate change over a five-year period.
“Jim Kim had deftly struck a balance between keeping the Trump administration mollified and involving the World Bank in work on areas that the administration has been openly hostile to,” said Eswar Prasad, the former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “The new head of the institution will face a difficult challenge in maintaining the institution’s legitimacy and relevance while hewing to the Trump administration’s open hostility to multilateralism.”
Since the institutions were created at the end of World War II, an American has led the World Bank and a European has led the International Monetary Fund. But there have been rumblings in recent years about changing that tradition, and some have suggested that if Trump makes an unorthodox selection, other countries on the bank’s board could break precedent and block his pick.
Amazon now tops in market value
Amazon has eclipsed Microsoft as the most valuable publicly traded company in the U.S. as a see-sawing stock market continues to reshuffle corporate America’s pecking order.
The shift occurred Monday after Amazon’s shares rose 3 percent to close at $1,629.51 and lifted the e-commerce leader’s market value to $797 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s stock edged up by less than 1 percent to finish at $102.06, leaving the computer software maker’s value at $784 billion.
It marks the first time Amazon has held the top spot and ends Microsoft’s brief return to the pinnacle after it surpassed Apple in late November .
Apple confirmed some of investors’ worst fears last week when it warned that disappointing demand for iPhones, especially in China, caused its revenue for its most recent quarter to fall well below the projections of its management and industry analysts.