Carducci joins Arts Place staff

Arts Place has a new director of development and corporate records.

The organization announced in a press release Friday that Carolyn Carducci has been hired to fill that role.

Carducci will lead fundraising efforts in addition to managing records of giving and handling other responsibilities. A graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University, she joins Arts Place after serving as student services advisor at John Jay Center for Learning.

She takes over for Lisa Vogler, who had worked at Arts Place for eight years, including the last 3.5 as director of development.

Donating

First Financial Bank and its employees have teamed up to contribute a total of $693,610 to United Way campaigns in the bank holding company’s various communities.

Of that amount, employees pledged $443,610 with a company contribution of $250,000. 

The employee contributions were designated for local United Way campaigns and United Way organizations.

Within the company’s contribution, $100,000 will go towards United Way of Greater Cincinnati Poverty Initiative, $75,000 was the First Financial associate match and $75,000 will go towards the Decatur County United Fund, where MainSource Bank was previously headquartered.

Likes tariff

Ardagh Group chairman Paul Coulson is hoping that President Trump’s tariffs will help the company’s glass bottle business, The Times of London reported in November.

Ardagh is the parent company of glass container plants in Dunkirk and Winchester.

A 10 percent tariff on glass bottles imported from China was imposed by the U.S. at the end of September. Those are expected to rise to 25 percent on Jan. 1.

The Times quoted Coulson, an Irish billionaire, calling the tariff a “welcome first step in moving to a more level playing field.”

In-store clinic

The Today Show reported this week that a new outpatient mental health clinic has opened inside a Walmart store in Carrollton, Texas, north of Dallas.

People can walk in, call or make an appointment online to see a licensed mental health professional about problems such as anxiety, depression, grief, relationship troubles or the stresses of everyday living, the NBC show said.

Beacon Health Options, a Boston-based behavioral health services company, is leasing space and runs the clinic. It’s the first such practice Beacon has opened in a retail setting. The location was chosen for its convenience.

Merger impact

The CVS Health $70 billion acquisition of Aetna is complete and is expected to have an impact on CVS store space.

CVS chief executive officer Larry Merlo told USA Today the company will begin using a greater portion of the floor space in its nearly 10,000 locations to provide medical services.

"I don’t see the size of the store changing from what you would know it to be today, but I do see some space being repurposed," Merlo said this week in an interview.

Merlo told the newspaper he envisions "CVS Pharmacy evolving from not just a store that happens to have a pharmacy and products" into "more of a health care destination."

Declares dividend

First Merchants Bank has declared a 22 cents per share dividend, payable on Dec. 21 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 7.

The bank holding company reported $41.1 million in profit in the third quarter, a year-over-year increase of 69 percent. 

First Merchants is the second largest bank in Indiana behind only Evansville-based Old National.

Expanding

S&K Products of Celina is planning a $1.5 million expansion that is expected to create 14 new full-time jobs.

The company, which manufactures galvanized steel tubs, pans, pails, trash cans and funnels, is owned by V.J. Westerheide. Plans call for a 20,000-square-foot building to be constructed at its current plant site on U.S. 127.

A 10-year, 100 percent tax abatement was approved by Mercer County officials.

New chair

The chief executive of Target has been named chairman of the board of Yum Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut.

Brian Cornell, 59, succeeds Robert Walter, who is stepping down as chairman but continuing to serve on the company’s board of directors.

Cornell joined Yum’s board in 2015. He joined Target in 2014 and had previously been chief executive officer of PepsiCo Americas Foods.

May merge

Investors of an ethanol plant in South Dakota will soon decide whether to merge with the plant's parent company, POET Biorefining LLC, according to press reports.

POET is the parent company of Portland’s ethanol plant.

The POET ethanol plant near Groton is among seven POET plants that haven't had investors vote on merging operations, according to the Aberdeen American News.

Jeff Lautt, president of POET Biorefining, said officials recently met with Groton plant investors in Aberdeen to discuss the potential merger. Investors at 19 other individual POET sites have already voted in favor of merging with the parent company.

“With President (Donald) Trump’s recent announcement that E-15 will be available year-round, we expect more opportunities in the future for biofuels,” Lautt said. “POET Biorefining has access to far more capital than any individual plant. We are well-positioned to lead that new growth.”

In the works?

The Wall Street Journal and Forbes both reported last month that Walgreens is in talks with the insurance company Humana about taking investment stakes in one another.

The talks come as CVS Health nears the closing of its merger with Aetna.

“We're not in a hurry to make a deal,” Walgreens executive vice president and global chief financial officer James Kehoe said last week at the 27th annual Credit Suisse Healthcare Conference, according to Forbes.

The Journal reported Tuesday afternoon that Humana and Walgreens are having "preliminary discussions to take equity stakes in each other." 

“It's a very capital efficient way to place multiple bets across your entire portfolio,” Kehoe said of the earlier partnerships Walgreens has already formed. “If your goal is to build the healthcare hub to reduce long-term healthcare costs, you can't just go out and buy one entity and that solves your issue.”

Accredited

The sleep lab at the Adams Memorial Hospital in Decatur has been notified by the Accreditation Committee for Health Care that it achieved accreditation status.

Cary Arner, director of the hospital’s cardiopulmonary services department, said that to reach accreditation status, the ACHC “had to find our sleep lab demonstrated it operated at a high level of quality, integrity, and effectiveness that was consistent with their standards.”

The department offers testing for individuals that may have sleep apnea or other sleeping disorders. It involves having a patient being monitored overnight by staff and test results are interpreted by board-certified specialists on staff at the hospital.

 

Slowing growth

Indian business websites are speculating that Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd., parent company of MSSL Wiring Systems of Portland, may see a slow down in its earnings growth. The company’s share price has fallen 35 percent since April, when it announced the acquisition of Reydel Automotive group. Acquisitions have led the company’s growth in the past, but a number of challenges now face the company. New emission standards have had an impact on auto industry sales globally, and that has an impact on component suppliers like Motherson Sumi.