When KFC announced it was abandoning its Louisville headquarters in favor of Plano, Texas, it hit the metro and its business community hard.
“This signals ‘it sucks,’ to be blunt about it, and I don’t think that’s news to anybody,” Councilman Anthony Piagentini told The Courier Journal in February about what the job losses mean for the local business environment, adding that the trend of businesses leaving has “a huge impact on Louisville, on our citizens.”
And the shocking move to leave the namesake state of KFC came with a hefty price tag. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made on April 30, the move cost Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, “approximately $7 million.”
“Costs incurred to date primarily include severance for employees who have chosen not to relocate and consultant fees,” the filing continued.
When Yum! Brands, a Fortune 500 company that has been based in Louisville since 1997, announced plans to relocate its KFC division to Texas, the move brought Louisville a loss of 100 KFC U.S. corporate employees, many of which were based in the metro prior to this announcement.
Despite the February loss of KFC U.S., Yum! Brands and the KFC Foundation have said they will retain corporate offices in Louisville. Yum! Brands also announced a $1 million endowment to the College of Business at the University of Louisville.
More: Employers, like KFC, are leaving Louisville and taking jobs. What it means for the city
Contact business reporter Olivia Evans at oevans@courier-journal.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter at @oliviamevans_.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Yum! Brands spends $7 million to relocate KFC from Louisville to Texas