Former Bakers’ Delight manager launches chicken franchise; Uber executive slammed for dirty media comments: Midday Roundup

The former head of operations for Bakers Delight, Chris Caldwell, has unveiled plans to grow his franchised rotisserie roasted chicken chain to 20 stories over the next four years.

Love Pollo recently opened its second store in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Camberwell, following its first store in the bayside suburb of Brighton.

Caldwell told SmartCompany chicken has always been a passion of his, and the idea came to him while visiting charcoal chicken stores during trips to Bakers’ Delight stores in regional and rural areas.

“The thing that always struck me, like in bakeries, was the poor standards of execution in the independent roast chicken shop industry. Standards of professionalism were out of date,” Caldwell says.

Uber executive slammed for dirty media comments

A senior executive at ridesharing startup Uber has come under scrutiny after reports surfaced in which he suggests the company should consider hiring a team of researchers to find dirt on journalists who were critical of the company.

The comments, originally covered by Buzzfeed News, were reportedly made by Uber’s senior vice president of business, Emil Michael, during a dinner at Manhattan’s Waverly Inn attended by a range of influential New York figures.

Michael later issued a statement saying he believed the controversial claims were made off the record and did not represent his regular views.

“The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them,” Michael said.

Shares trading lower

Aussie shares have fallen in morning trade for the third day in row this week, following another flat session on Wall Street overnight.

Tristan K’nell, head of trading at Quay Equities, said the announcement of snap election next month and a delay to the sales tax increase in Japan has also influenced investors. But elsewhere in the market K’nell says two large IPOs are generating some momentum.

“The Medibank IPO indicative price range has been increased from $2-$2.30 after initially being set at $1.55-$2 [and] retail investors have a locked in price of $2,” said K’Nell.

“There could be a fair bit of interest in Estis Health’s IPO, which has an indicative price range of $5.17 to $6.96, given how many investors will miss on allocation in Medibank and have excess funds to put to work.”

The S&P/ASX 200 benchmark was down 9.8 points to 5389.9 points at 12.06pm AEDT. On Tuesday the Dow Jones closed 40.07 points higher, up 0.23% to 17687.8 points.

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