perspective corey templeton 36 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine PortlandMonthly:What100-year-oldbusinessesseem the‘youngest’andmostflexiblethisyear? Evan Livada: L.L. Bean started by making the first Bean Boot. Now they can’t fill the or- ders. There’s a whole year worth of backlog. Isthatarecurringmiscalculation? H ardly. All you need is a new celeb- rity to be seen wearing them and the entire desire curve changes overnight. They have 52 stores now. They’re opening one at Mashpee Commons, a trendy location in Cape Cod. Everybody’s making a similar product. Sperry makes them. But none has the ca- chet of ‘made in America, fully guaranteed with your money back, L.L. Bean.’ What’sanother‘young’oldbusiness? Hannaford Bros. employs 8,400 people. In 1944, they went retail. In 2011 they add- ed online ordering with Hannaford to Go. They work hard to stay ahead of the curve. Last year they took more steps to eliminate food waste. Twenty-five million pounds of food were do- nated to offset hunger. Who knows standingofPortlandandmorelocalculturalparticipation? UnionMutualstartedherein1848. UNUM is interesting. The stock peaked in 1999 at 60.44, and it’s getting back to al- most those levels. As I speak, the stock is 48. The high for the year is 51.43. Low for the year is 33.98. Whodidn’tgetthememothisyear?Pleasetellmeabout twobusinessesmaroonedbytimethathavetoreconsider theirbasicpremises? The Maine Mall has been marooned, so they’re going to have to keep adjusting. What’s going to replace malls? You’re going to see roller skating. An Apple store will al- ways survive at a mall, but other stores are victims of the times. The fringe stores like Dollar General, Dollar Tree, TJ Maxx/Marshalls, and what- not are threatening malls. People want name brands at a discount. The competi- tion is tough, and everybody wants to buy things online. Footlocker just reported a horrendous quarter. Sears has gone through a major restructuring, but at least they’re doing some partner- ing with Amazon. how people will get their groceries in the future? Uber drivers, drones–who knows? What we do know is, Hannaford is pay- ing attention. YoumeanparentcompanyDelhaizeLeLeon(ofBelgium andTheNetherlands)ispayingattention. Hannaford has been acquired three times, I believe. Hannaford’s headquarters are in Scarborough. They have a significant im- pact here. Whotookthemtothenextlevelherebeforethey wereacquired?Whowasthemagicexec? Hugh Farrington did a great job. With a lot of the mergers and acquisitions, he proba- bly did do a lot of that. But before him there was James L. Moody, who joined the com- pany in 1959 and was named president in 1971. That’s when Hannaford took off. LikeColinHamptonatUnionMutual,whenUNUMhad abenevolentpresenceheredeepenedbyadeftunder- The bustle of RiRa on Commercial Street indicates Portland’s thriving cultural economy. “Half of the paper mills in Maine have closed since 1980. In 2012, Great Northern paper mill won the contract to produce 3,000 tons of paper for Fifty Shades of Grey. If they keep making reprints of Fifty Shades, the paper industry will be saved.”