Business North Carolina articles from December 2006

Business North Carolina archives from December 2006

Paper losses.(UP FRONT)
December 1, 2006... My buddy Doug Warren, travel editor of The Boston Globe, was telling me how it had just won a national award for best travel section among newspapers of 500,000+ circulation. "And if we keep losing readers the way we have been, we can win the...

Trend.(economic statistics for North Carolina)(Statistical data)
December 1, 2006... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Latest Previous Previous % change from month month year last year ...

Stock watch.(stock prices for North Carolina businesses)(Statistical data)
December 1, 2006... SPOTLIGHT Red Hat shares dropped 24% in one day after Oracle said in late October that it would undercut Red Hat's software-support prices. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Highest price/earnings ratios ...

Law could curb excess of access by lobbyists.(Interview)
December 1, 2006... Lobbyists had long been like the weather in North Carolina. Everyone, it seemed, complained about them, but nobody did much about them. But a string of scandals involving House Speaker Jim Black and the state lottery helped push major reform...

Turkey producer gobbles up Butterball.(EASTERN)
December 1, 2006... Mount Olive-based Carolina Turkeys bought the Butterball brand from Omaha, Neb.-based ConAgra Foods for $325 million and changed its name to Butterball LLC. The deal created the nation's largest producer of turkeys; Carolina Turkeys had ranked...

Pharmaceutical Product Development.(EASTERN)
December 1, 2006... WILMINGTON -- Fred Davenport, 54, resigned as president of Pharmaceutical Product Development, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. He joined the drug researcher 10 years ago as general counsel, and his resignation as its...

Defense Holdings.(EASTERN)
December 1, 2006... TRENTON -- Defense Holdings, a Manassas, Va.-based military contractor, will spend about $2 million over three years to build offices and hire 25 people here. Pay will average about $880 a week; the Jones County average is $488. The company...

Poor property owners in Duplin and Jones counties are eligible for state grants of up to $25,000 each for flood damage from Tropical Storm Ernesto in August.(EASTERN)
December 1, 2006... KENANSVILLE -- Poor property owners in Duplin and Jones counties are eligible for state grants of up to $25,000 each for flood damage from Tropical Storm Ernesto in August. Gov. Mike Easley declared the counties disaster areas after the U.S....

Brunswick Community Hospital.(EASTERN)
December 1, 2006... SUPPLY -- Brunswick Community Hospital, operated by Winston-Salem-based Novant Health, wants to build a $100 million hospital to replace its 60-bed hospital about three miles away. Still subject to state approval, it would have 92 private...

Working capital.(REGIONAL REPORT)
December 1, 2006... Source: Employment Security Commission, August. Figures are not seasonally adjusted. The index is the number of jobs as a percentage of the average in 2000. [GRAPHIC OMITTED]

Family makes Pinehurst its last resort.(Pinehurst Resort)(KSL Capital Partners)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Dallas-based ClubCorp agreed to sell Pinehurst resort to the family of company founder Robert Dedman, who died in 2002. The Dedmans own about 70% of ClubCorp stock. In a separate transaction, ClubCorp agreed to sell itself to Denver-based KSL...

IBM.(TRIANGLE)
December 1, 2006... RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM cut about 400 U.S. jobs, including 35 here. The layoffs affected its Systems and Technology Group, which develops the company's servers and microelectronics products. The company still employs...

Capital Associates.(TRIANGLE)
December 1, 2006... CARY -- An investment group led by Capital Associates bought The Weston One office building from a group led by New York-based DRA Advisors for $41.4 million. The Capital group also paid $1.6 million for 5.5 acres adjacent to the...

Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission.(TRIANGLE)
December 1, 2006... RALEIGH -- The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission fined Anton Airfood of North Carolina a record $40,000. ABC says the restaurant and bar operator at Raleigh-Durham International Airport served an 18-year-old Marine who later was...

Cempra Pharmaceuticals.(TRIANGLE)
December 1, 2006... MORRISVILLE -- Cempra Pharmaceuticals, a startup that focuses on anti-infection drugs, added an investor to its first round of venture capital, pushing its take from $14 million to $22 million. New York-based Aisling Capital joined a group led...

Downtown Raleigh Alliance.(TRIANGLE)
December 1, 2006... RALEIGH -- Nancy Hormann, 57, will resign this month as CEO of the nonprofit Downtown Raleigh Alliance because her husband was transferred to Phoenix. Hormann had replaced Margaret Mullen in July 2005.

Motricity.(company reorganization results in layoffs)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Durham-based Motricity reorganized to respond better to customers. It cut about 10 positions, most in sales and support. Most of the remaining 300 employees are now grouped by customer type. Motricity makes software that helps people buy games,...

Carolina Precision Plastics.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... GREENSBORO -- Asheboro-based Carolina Precision Plastics, which makes containers and other products for cosmetics and health-care goods, is spending $4.5 million to open a factory here by year-end. It will employ about 100, increasing to 150...

Exhibit Works.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... WINSTON-SALEM -- Livonia, Mich.-based Exhibit Works, which designs and makes marketing displays for trade shows, museums, special events and stores, is spending about $9.1 million to open a factory that will employ 66 here by summer. Salaries...

Gildan.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... MOUNT AIRY -- Gildan will close two sock plants here, idling more than 250, by the end of January. The Montreal-based apparel manufacturer is shifting production to Central America and the Caribbean.

Lexington Home Brands.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... THOMASVILLE -- Lexington Home Brands agreed to produce a line of upholstered furniture and case goods named for New York real-estate mogul Donald Trump. Terms of the licensing agreement were not disclosed. Lexington's other products include...

Parkdale America.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... EDEN -- Gastonia-based Parkdale America planned to close its cotton-yarn plant here and lay off 72 workers by the end of November. It blamed foreign competition.

Hanesbrands.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... RURAL HALL -- Hanesbrands, a Winston-Salem-based clothing manufacturer, plans to close a distribution center in Weston, Fla., idling nearly 80, and consolidate two Twin City warehouses into a larger one here, now used for inventory that won't...

Ansell Protective Clothing.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... THOMASVILLE -- Ansell Protective Clothing closed its factory here, idling about 30. The factory, part of Richmond, Australia-based Ansell, made aprons and other protective clothing for the automotive and food-service industries. Ansell blamed...

Reynolds American.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... WINSTON-SALEM -- Susan Ivey, chairman and CEO of cigarette maker Reynolds American, ranks 20th on Fortune magazine's annual ranking of the nation's most powerful businesswomen. She advanced four spots from 2005, largely because of a 33%...

Tournament sponsor comes to the fore.(Wyndham Worldwide sponsors Greensboro PGA tournament)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Wyndham Worldwide is the new title sponsor of Greensboro's PGA Tour golf tournament. The Parsippany, N.J.-based hotel chain agreed to a four-year, $25 million deal. The inaugural Wyndham Championship will be played at Forest Oaks Country Club...

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings.(TRIAD)
December 1, 2006... Burlington-based Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings won a 10-year, $3 billion contract to do medical tests for Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group, which insures about 70 million Americans. LabCorp expects to gross $3.6 billion this...

Sun setting on British insurer in U.S.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... London-based Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group agreed to sell its Charlotte-based U.S. operations to management for $300 million. John Tighe, chief executive of Royal & Sun's U.S. operations since 2003, will head Arrowpoint Capital, which...

Darnel.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... MONROE -- Darnel, part of Cartagena, Colombia-based Ajover, will spend about $20 million to open a factory here and create 100 jobs during the next three years. The plant will make foam containers and other plastic products for the food...

Actavis.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... LINCOLNTON -- Actavis, a Reykjavik, Iceland-based generic-drug maker, plans to move part of its liquid-drug manufacturing from Baltimore to its factory here, where it employs about 200. The $22 million expansion will add more than 50 jobs...

DIRT MotorSports.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... CONCORD -- DIRT MotorSports, the major sanctioning body for U.S. dirt-track racing, will move headquarters here from Norman, Okla., by the end of the year. DIRT expects the $1.26 million investment to create 52 jobs within three years.

TransWorld Med.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... INDIAN TRAIL -- TransWorld Med, a Charlotte-based medical-device developer, will spend $20 million to move its headquarters here and expand. A planned factory is expected to produce an organ-monitoring device for transplant patients. The...

United Plate Glass.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... LINCOLNTON -- Butler, Pa.-based United Plate Glass, a glass fabricator and distributor with customers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and New York, plans to spend $4.5 million on a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing plant here that initially...

FairPoint Communications.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... CHARLOTTE -- FairPoint Communications agreed to buy Germantown Independent Telephone of Ohio for $10.2 million. After the deal closes, FairPoint will own and operate 30 rural telephone companies in 18 states.

Shogren Industries.(CHARLOTTE)
December 1, 2006... Concord-based Shogren Industries will lay off 235 full- and part-time workers and send production overseas within the next several months. The hosiery manufacturer will leave about 60 full-time employees in Concord to handle sales and...

Counties grope with building on slopes.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Local governments in the region are cracking down on houses built on slopes prone to landslides, and they're getting help from the state. Boone passed an ordinance that requires a state-licensed geologist to approve development on the steepest...

More than 150 acres with a checkered past will become a pricey neighborhood.(Reynolds Mountain Realty Group)(Raleigh investors)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... WOODFIN -- More than 150 acres with a checkered past will become a pricey neighborhood. The town agreed to sell a money-losing municipal golf course that once was a landfill to Asheville-based Reynolds Mountain Realty Group and Raleigh...

Farmers have placed 5,000 acres in Polk County's farmland-preservation program since it started in 2002.(WESTERN)
December 1, 2006... COLUMBUS -- Farmers have placed 5,000 acres in Polk County's farmland-preservation program since it started in 2002, according to a report to the county commissioners. That amounts to a third of Polk's agricultural land. The program encourages...

The Kessler Enterprise.(WESTERN)
December 1, 2006... ASHEVILLE -- The Kessler Enterprise, an Orlando, Fla.-based owner of small hotels that operate under various names, will build a four-story, 89-room hotel here. Rates will start at about $200 a night. Construction will begin in early 2007 and...

Tryon Country Club.(WESTERN)
December 1, 2006... TRYON -- The town vetoed Tryon Country Club's plan to sell 49 acres to Greenville, S.C.-based DewSouth Communities, which wanted to build 40 houses and 10 apartments. Opponents cited inadequate roads and excessive development nearby.

Union trips up member's trip to India for surgery.(TAR HEEL TATTLER)
December 1, 2006... This is a story about Carl Garrett's gallbladder--a tale that might have meandered in obscurity from the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the plains of India and back if not for the griping of a Pittsburgh-based labor union. It is a tale...

Ex-exec tries to run the tables to Vegas.(TAR HEEL TATTLER)
December 1, 2006... Around High Point, Harvey Dondero is the modern equivalent of a cowpuncher who sold out to the rustlers. He quit as CEO of Lenoir-based Broyhill Furniture Industries in June. Three months later, he became CEO of World Market Center in Las...

Duke ponies up to seal deal for street.(Duke University )
December 1, 2006... Here's an update on the old quid pro quo: Write an agreement that promises politicians money they can use for their pet project and a bonus if they approve yours by a certain date. Then sit back and watch as the pols defend themselves against...

Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New Political Debate.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... J. Adam Abram, CEO, James River Group Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New Political Debate by Ronald Dworkin Dworkin is a political philosopher trying to establish a basis for a more civil, meaningful political debate by...

The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership.(WHAT THEY'RE READING)
December 1, 2006... Robert Hambright, Southeastern division CEO, Centex Construction The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership by Steve Farber Farber equates leadership to when we were in love: We learned about the other person and did...

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... Ernest F. Schaub, CEO, EnPro Industries Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin It's a great book about Lincoln's presidency and how he picked several rivals to join his cabinet. It was a time...

Investor's portfolio gets fine tooning.(Chris Smith of Allegiance Corp invests in Educational Adventures's Danger Rangers)
December 1, 2006... Real estate is Chris Smith's area of expertise. He's president of Charlotte-based Allegiance Realty Corp., which owns about 2.1 million square feet of office space and 1,700 hotel rooms around the U.S. So what got him to collect about $5...

A cigarette maker takes up the Penns'.(PEOPLE)
December 1, 2006... Calvin Phelps sees a bit of himself in Jeff Penn. Like that fellow, whose family started Penn Tobacco in Reidsville in the 1870s, Phelps is a tobacco executive. His Mocksville-based Renegade Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries make cigarettes...

To make bread, he kneads East to rise.(Al Delia of Small Business and Technology Development Center)
December 1, 2006... Twenty years ago, Al Delia narrowed his job search to Eastern North Carolina or rural Hawaii. He was living in New Jersey, looking for a rustic place where he could put to use what he had learned during four years working with...

Changing the course: from growing organs for transplants to using new types of imaging technology to find tumors, the center fights to advance humankind.
December 1, 2006... At Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, we believe that when an academic medical center has innovation as a guiding mission, the very course of humankind can be changed. Discoveries made through research or patient encounters can make...

At JMH, it's electronic: officials say the switch makes patient care more comprehensive; up next is using Meditech systems to monitor medication online.
December 1, 2006... The nursing staff and members of other clinical disciplines at Johnston Memorial Hospital are proud to have made the successful conversion from paper to electronic documentation. Since late 1999, patient medical-record keeping has evolved to a...

Improving the process: WakeMed implements three simple innovations to make sure heart, stroke and declining patients get treatment quicker.
December 1, 2006... What is at the heart of innovation? In a hospital, innovation can be something as complex as a multi-million dollar CAT scanner that revolutionizes cardiac diagnostics or as simple as improving a process to get patients the care they need as...

The patient comes first: UNC Orthopaedics will continue to combine the use of the latest technological developments with old-fashioned customer service.
December 1, 2006... As a critical component of UNC Health Care, UNC Orthopaedics provides state-of-the-art care to adults and children with musculoskeletal conditions. Our physicians treat a variety of conditions affecting the upper and lower extremities, spine...

High fliers: our panel of professional stock pickers predict which Tar Heel shares will be the top performers next year.(FEATURE)(Discussion)
December 1, 2006... A year ago, Frank Black gave this characteristically optimistic outlook on the economy: "You've got oil prices sky high, interest rates going up, and the market refuses to go down. It's time for the good news." The CEO of Charlotte-based...

Flights of fancy: a new owner wins over his craftsmen--and turns around our Small Business of the Year--with some skills of his own.
December 1, 2006... Metal buildings line Gribble Road in Matthews, east of Charlotte, housing a private garbage-collection service, car repair shops and other businesses. In one, Kevin Schoolcraft pushes through a door from offices into a shop that covers a...

On exhibits: it takes a lot of effort and not a little artifice to maintain a sense of reality at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.(PICTURE THIS)
December 1, 2006... First, do no harm. Steve Harvell lives by that motto on the job. Harvell, 54, isn't a physician. He's curator of exhibit design at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, in charge of maintaining what's being displayed at the seven-story,...

Bricks & mortar.
December 1, 2006... Its beaux-arts lines match the grandeur of the stars of the stage and screen at The Carolina Theatre in Durham. Built with a budget of $250,000, it opened in 1926. After an $8.7 million renovation, it reopened in 1994 and is again a performance...