Hillshire Brands: America’s Top of the Class Processed Foods

When Sara Lee Corporation spun off its international coffee and tea division, it led to the creation of Hillshire Brands. The company is an American food business that manufactures and markets packaged meat and several other frozen bakery products. The business is based in Chicago, Illinois and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyson Foods.

The business was created in 2012 and started trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange. Common stocks are traded under the symbol HSH. The business is already a multi-billion venture with annualized revenue of more than $4 billion. Hillshire Brands is comprised of brand names including Golden Island Premium Jerky, Sara Lee, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Kahns, Ball Park, Gallo Salame, Aidells, State Fair and Chef Pierre Pies. These products are mostly sold to the retailed and foodservice markets.

While the company is fairly new, the brand names it carries have a history that goes back to as far as more than a century ago. These brand names have been offering the market the freshest bounties and well processed foods. Their State Fair brand name is best known for creating the honey-batter-wrapped hot dog on a stick that has captured the heart of the entire nation since the 1930s. This American classic has become the well-loved Corn Dog. The oldest product and brand name that Hillshire Brands carry is their Gallo Salame. More than a century ago, Louis Gabiati moved from northern Italy to San Francisco and introduced one of the world’s best salamis. The company continued to create this traditional dry salami using the finest meat, processed and aged naturally.

The iconic brand names that the business carries are mostly acquired through the years as the business continues to expand. The tremendous growth of Hillshire Brands happened after the company has merged with Tycon Foods. The merger of the two giant companies got completed in August 2014.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Securing the Future of Medical Education

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) is a New York-based medical school founded in 1963. It was chartered through the Mount Sinai Hospital. It is numbered among the  premier medical schools in the US. In the US News & World Report, ISMMS placed 19th in research. This year, ISMMS is 18th among the US medical schools funded by the NIH.

In January 1958, the board of trustees of Mount Sinai Hospital made the first official proposal to establish a medical school. The school was known then as Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM). MSSM held its first class in 1968. As Mount Sinai Hospital became known for advanced laboratories and, patient care, MSSM also became one of the leading medical schools in the US.

The degrees at MSSM were granted by the City University of New York (CUNY). But following the merger of Mount Sinai and the New York University (NYU) in 1998 which created the Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center and Health Systems, MSSM’s university affiliation changed to NYU. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education accredited MSSM in 2010 and granted independence to MSSM to confer degrees.

To honor Carl Icahn, MSSM was renamed Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in November 2012.

One Acre Fund: Bringing New Hope to Smallholder Farmers in East Africa

One Acre Fund is a Kenya-based not-for-profit organization that works closely with the farmers in the rural villages in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Its mission is to provide asset-based financing and agriculture-based training to smallholder farmers in these countries. The ultimate goal of One Acre Fund is to significantly reduce the incidence of hunger and poverty in these areas.

Transactions and activities on all levels within the farming value chain at One Acre Fund are facilitated through a market-based approach. Among these transactions and activities include seed sourcing and markets support, which are essential parts of the farming value chain. According to One Acre Fund’s report in 2013, its member-farmers realized 180% of return on investment. Most of these farmers have increased their farm income on each acre planted.

Through One Acre Fund’s initiatives, smallholder farmers gain access to the organization’s “service bundle.” The “service bundle” provides seeds and fertilizer, funds for farm inputs, training on new agriculture techniques, and market facilitation that will almost guarantee profits. Loan packages carry crop insurances that deal with the risks of unforeseen events such as diseases or drought.

Farmers need to be a part of a village group in order to avail the loans and training from One Acre Fund. Such village group should be supported by a field officer recognized by One Acre Fund. The delivery of farm inputs and conduct of the trainings and the collection of repayments are coordinated between the field officers and the farmers. As a means to help the farmers in their repayment process, One Acre Fund implements a flexible repayment system where the farmers pay their loans in increments anytime within the growing season. One Acre Fund reported that in 2013, 99% of the farmers have fully paid their loans.

One Acre Fund was established in 2006 by Andrew Youn. His MBA at Kellog School of Management brought him to Kenya in August 2005 where he researched in the quality of life of the smallholder farmers there. He discovered that most of his respondents endured a “hunger season” at least every year. In spite of having one acre lands, they were not able to feed their families. Youn went back to Kellog armed with a new vision: a business plan that would introduce market-based approach in productive farming. Thus, One Acre Fund was birthed and was launched in February 2006 in Bungoma, Kenya.

Lyft: Lifting Ridesharing to Higher Levels

Lyft is a private American transportation network company based in San Francisco, California. Its mobile app facilitates a peer-to-peer ridesharing by requesting a ride from available “community drivers”. Guided by the tagline “Your friend with a car,” Lyft’s services are 30% less than the regular price of a similar ride via a cab. Today, Lyft is operating in 60 cities in the US.

Lyft was founded in 2007 by Logan Green and John Zimmer. It was launched in 2012 as a service of Zimride. All the drivers and passengers of Lyft are required to sign up to the Lyft service via their Facebook accounts. After each ride, the drivers and the passengers rate each other using a scale of five. The ratings can either positively or adversely affect the reputation of the drivers and passengers within the network.

In June 2013, Lyft completed a Series C funding activity where the company received $60 million in venture investments. In March 2014, Lyft announced another round of funding activities where the company received another $250 million. This was after Lyft launched the “Happy Hour,” a discount feature.

McGraw-Hill: One of the Most Influential Entities in the Financial Industry

McGraw-Hill Financial, Inc. is a publicly traded financial institution that offers publishing, financial and business services. The business was created in 1917 and is now a billion dollar venture with revenue of more than $4.9 billion.

McGraw-Hill is best known for being the parent business of Platts, J.D. Power and Associates, McGraw Hill Construction and the Standard & Poor’s. The holding company is also the majority stakeholder of the S&P Dow Jones Indices venture. Its companies are known as institutions in the financial industry and has very influence on how businesses run. The operations of the company are categorized into four segments basing it on the market they are engaged in: Standard & Poor’s, S&P Capital IQ, S&P Dow Jones Indices and its Commercial and Commodities Market.

Of its businesses, the S&P Dow Jones Indices is probably one of the most influential. It has global coverage and is listed as the world’s largest global resource for research, data and index-based concepts. It serves as the backbone of all the world’s indexed assets. It produces the world’s famous Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. There are about 830,000 indices that the company calculates.

The business started out in 1888 when its founder James H. McGraw, purchased the American Journal of Railway Appliances. He then put up The McGraw Publishing Company in 1899 after acquiring several other publications. This publishing unit of the conglomerate works closely with the McGraw-Hill Education company. The name McGraw-Hill Publishing changed its brand name to The McGraw-Hill Companies to reflect corporate-rebranding of the business in 1995. It eventually changed its corporate name to McGraw-Hill Financial in 2013.

McGraw-Hill is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MHFI. It is also listed as a major component of the S&P 500.