Business North Carolina articles from October 2006

Business North Carolina archives from October 2006

Look away.(UP FRONT)
October 1, 2006... Anniversaries come and go, sometimes coinciding and even colliding. We're putting this, our 25th anniversary issue of BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA, to bed three days after the nation commemorated the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I had asked Alex...

Trend.(Statistical table)
October 1, 2006... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] % change Latest Previous Previous from last ...

Stock watch.(Statistical table)
October 1, 2006... SPOTLIGHT Highwoods Properties stock shot up in late June after another company tried unsuccessfully to buy it out. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Highest price/earnings ratios P/E ...

25 years made a world of change for economy.(ECONOMIC OUTLOOK)(Interview)
October 1, 2006... Michael Walden has monitored changes in North Carolina's economy since joining N.C. State University's faculty in 1978. A professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, he prepares The North Carolina Economic Outlook, a...

Larger aquarium makes a big splash.(EASTERN)
October 1, 2006... Attendance at the renovated N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores outpaced projections, with more than 250,000 visitors through late August. It reopened May 19, after a two-year, $25 million expansion boosted it to 95,000 square feet, more than...

Quintiles Transnational.(EASTERN)
October 1, 2006... WILLIAMSTON -- Durham-based Quintiles Transnational will open a data-processing center here, creating about 60 jobs by 2009. The company, which conducts clinical drug trials, received about $120,000 in state incentives. Employees will earn an...

North Carolina Innovation Institute.(EASTERN)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... FAYETTEVILLE -- A $2 million defense-industry incubator will open here this month. The North Carolina Innovation Institute says the 15,000-square-foot office will be the short-term home of 12 to 15 startups. They are expected to stay less than...

Northeastern North Carolina Regional Economic Development Commission.(EASTERN)
October 1, 2006... EDENTON -- Northeastern wine-makers have formed an association--as yet unnamed--to promote production and tourism in a 16-county region. The Northeastern North Carolina Regional Economic Development Commission says four wineries operate in the...

Moffatt & Nichol.(EASTERN)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... MANTEO -- If shifting sands close Oregon Inlet, it would cost Dare County's economy $682 million a year, an engineering company says. More than 9,800 jobs would be lost or curtailed, says Long Beach, Calif.-based Moffatt & Nichol, which the...

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

Fidelity invests $100 million in RTP.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... FMR, a Boston-based financial-services company that does business as Fidelity Investments, plans to spend $100 million and bring 2,000 jobs to Research Triangle Park by the end of 2009. Fidelity has about 1,000 North Carolina employees. Most...

Progress Energy.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... RALEIGH -- Progress Energy agreed to sell its Winchester Energy natural-gas business to Dallas-based EXCO Resources for $1.2 billion. Progress plans to use the proceeds primarily for debt reduction.

Stock Building Supply.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... RALEIGH -- Stock Building Supply bought Cary-based Martin Architectural Products for an undisclosed sum. Stock, part of Theale, England-based Wolseley, is keeping all 140 Martin employees. Martin, which had 2005 sales of $26.3 million, makes...

RBC Centura Banks.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... RALEIGH -- RBC Centura Banks, the U.S. commercial-banking arm of Royal Bank of Canada, bought Atlanta-based Flag Financial for $456 million. The acquisition, RBC Centura's first in three years, expands the bank's presence in Georgia from 30...

Pozen.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... CHAPEL HILL -- Drug developer Pozen and British drug manufacturing giant AstraZeneca struck a deal that could be worth $375 million to Pozen. It will get an upfront payment of $40 million for the development of an arthritis treatment, with the...

Cempra Pharmaceuticals.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... MORRISVILLE -- Cempra Pharmaceuticals, a startup that focuses on anti-infection drugs, got $14 million in venture capital, which it will use for product development. Durham-based Intersouth Partners and investment banker I. Wistar Morris III...

Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... RALEIGH -- Dave Heinl, 62, CEO of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau since it was formed in 1987, will retire at the end of March. A committee has been formed to find a replacement.

Destineer.(TRIANGLE)
October 1, 2006... Destineer, a Plymouth, Minn.-based videogame developer and publisher, opened a Raleigh studio. It plans to hire about 100, including software engineers, artists and game designers. It picked Raleigh because of its deep pool of talent for...

Gold Toe Investment.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... BURLINGTON -- The Blackstone Group, a New York investment company, bought controlling interest in Gold Toe Investment ("No Mean Feat," July 2003) and will merge it with Newton-based Moretz to create GoldToe Moretz. Gold Toe makes dress and...

Piedmont Triad International Airport.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... GREENSBORO -- Boardings at Piedmont Triad International Airport (see Trend, p. 10) decreased in June for the 13th straight month on a year-over-year basis. One possible reason: Fares rose nearly 25% from the first quarter of 2005 to the first...

Ottenweller Co.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... ELKIN -- Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Ottenweller Co., which fabricates, welds and machines parts for heavy-equipment manufacturers, plans to build a $4.7 million factory here by 2008 and employ 96 by 2010.

JKS Motor-sports.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... WINSTON-SALEM -- JKS Motor-sports, which makes decals, signs and other materials for motor-sports sponsors, will move to Davidson County by mid-2007. The company employs 40 but says it plans to expand and add 15 employees after it moves.

The Carroll Cos.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... GREENSBORO -- The Carroll Cos. bought the former Wachovia tower from Philadelphia-based insurer Lincoln Financial Group. Developer Roy Carroll plans to spend $37 million to renovate the 16-story building, which will include stores, offices and...

Southern Family Markets.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... Birmingham, Ala.-based Southern Family Markets is getting out of the grocery business in North Carolina. The company closed nine namesake stores, all but two in the Triad, and hopes to sell eight others. About 700 employees lost their jobs, and...

Honda bases aircraft subsidiary at PTI.(TRIAD)
October 1, 2006... Tokyo-based Honda Motor selected Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro as the headquarters for its Honda Aircraft subsidiary, which will make and sell its small business airplane. The prototype HondaJet was developed, assembled and...

CT plans to bulk up by adding fiber.(CHARLOTTE)
October 1, 2006... Trying to fend off competition on several fronts, CT Communications plans to spend about $2.5 million laying fiber-optic cable to about 10,000 Concord homes by the end of the year. The project will speed Internet communications and make it...

Sunbelt Rentals.(CHARLOTTE)
October 1, 2006... CHARLOTTE -- Sunbelt Rentals, part of Leatherhead, England-based Ashtead Group, will pay $1 billion for Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based NationsRent. The purchase will expand Sunbelt--the fourth-largest equipment-rental company in the U.S.--into...

Belk.(CHARLOTTE)(Belk Inc. buys Parisian Inc.)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... CHARLOTTE -- Belk is paying $285 million to buy 38 Parisian department stores in the Midwest and Southeast--none in North Carolina--from Birmingham, Ala.-based Saks. That will give Belk 315 stores in 19 states. Most of the Parisian stores are...

Langtree at the Lake.(CHARLOTTE)
October 1, 2006... MOORESVILLE -- Developer Rick Howard and Cola, S.C.-based Atrium Development plan to build an $800 million mixed-use development on Lake Norman by 2012. Langtree at the Lake will include 900 apartments and condominiums, 580,000 square feet of...

Robert Bosch.(CHARLOTTE)
October 1, 2006... LINCOLNTON -- German tool maker Robert Bosch plans to spend $3 million--$1 million more than it originally announced--to add a production line to its plant here, creating at least 50 jobs. It employs about 500 making power tools in Lincoln...

UVEST Financial Services.(CHARLOTTE)(Linsco/Private Ledger Corp.)(UVEST Financial Services Group Inc.)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... San Diego-based Linsco/Private Ledger agreed to buy Charlotte-based UVEST Financial Services. Both are independent brokerages. Terms were not disclosed. UVEST will keep its name and employees--about 230 in Charlotte. LPL also plans to establish...

Town seeks to peek in new big boxes.(WESTERN)
October 1, 2006... Boone passed an ordinance that requires developers to provide community- and economic-impact analyses for each store that has more than 150,000 square feet of floor space. The impact statements will give the town a chance to veto projects that...

Peerless Development Group.(WESTERN)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... PENLAND -- Allen, Texas-based Peerless Development Group began selling more than 1,500 home sites on 2,000 acres it is developing in Mitchell County next to Penland School of Crafts, a retreat for artisans. No timetable or development cost has...

Volvo Construction Equipment Rents.(WESTERN)
October 1, 2006... ASHEVILLE -- Volvo Construction Equipment Rents, which leases backhoes and other equipment, will add two outlets here by January. Combined, they will employ about 30, and each will have about $5 million in equipment for rent. Its parent, Volvo...

Watauga County.(WESTERN)
October 1, 2006... BOONE -- Watauga County has adopted the first regulations in the state for windmills that generate electricity. The new rules place few restrictions on small systems operated by users who consume the power on-site but require approval by the...

Global glut of grapes makes growers gulp.(TAR HEEL TATTLER)
October 1, 2006... The bloom may be off the grape in North Carolina. A worldwide wine glut left Yadkin Valley and other growers struggling this year to find buyers for their crop. Not that they didn't contribute to the problem. In 2001, there were 200...

Holly Springs gets stuck by incentives.(TAR HEEL TATTLER)
October 1, 2006... Maybe Holly Springs should hold a really big bake sale. But the town would have to sell a lot of cookies, brownies and cakes to make up the $11.8 million gap between what it has promised to spend on Swiss drug maker Novartis to land a vaccine...

Market fears buyers put off by inn crowd.(TAR HEEL TATTLER)
October 1, 2006... Quit biting the hand that feeds you, the High Point Market Authority is pleading to hoteliers who routinely triple room rates for the twice-yearly furniture markets. Pretty please. We'll try to scratch your back if you scratch ours. ...

Correction.(Correction notice)
October 1, 2006... The Top 75 listing of the state's largest public companies in the August issue omitted Hendersonville-based Mountain 1st Bank & Trust. With a market capitalization of $119.6 million June 30, it ranked 73rd, moving Icagen to No. 74 and...

Up Country.(WHAT THEY'RE READING)
October 1, 2006... Ayden Lee Jr., CEO, Four Oaks Fincorp Up Country by Nelson DeMille He's a vivid writer, but this book is also a bit of nostalgia. A man goes back to Vietnam after 30 years as an investigator to solve a supposed murder. I was a...

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.(WHAT THEY'RE READING)
October 1, 2006... Jim W. Perry, CEO, Waste Industries USA The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman This book gave me a new perspective of how significant events and concepts have shaped our current business...

Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before.(WHAT THEY'RE READING)
October 1, 2006... Dave Singer, CEO, Lance Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before by Jean M. Twenge It's helped in better understanding my own kids and given me things to...

Buy all appearances: that you can do at Morris Costumes, especially this time of year when business is so good that it's downright scary.(PICTURE THIS)
October 1, 2006... He prowls the darkened warehouse at midnight, a jowly man whose heavy lids cover eyes that have seen gore, rotting flesh, the dead and the dead that won't stay that way. In the dim light, Philip Morris moves with the Hitchcockian gait of a man...

Under pressure: no closely held company wants to go where Conbraco has been. This family beat long odds to bring it back.(FEATURE)(Conbraco Industries Inc.)(Company overview)
October 1, 2006... As a boy, Glenn Mosack would trail his father around Conbraco Industries Inc.'s factories, fascinated by the whining tools that machined blocks of metal into valves and left bright shavings that sparkled almost like gold. For the business his...

Impact players: looking back over the magazine's history, we decided these people had key roles in what has happened here.(25TH ANNIVERSARY)
October 1, 2006... Since its beginning, this magazine has told the story of business in North Carolina by telling stories of business people. So it seems logical that to mark BNC's silver anniversary we would pick the 25 people we thought had the most impact on...

The China trade: our jobs for their cheap goods is how these workers have shaped the Tar Heel economy--and they're not finished.(25TH ANNIVERSARY)
October 1, 2006... Few people can sew jeans as well as Lee Chitak. His bosses at Comeglory Trading Co. say he's due for promotion because he is so efficient, one of the best on the shop floor. He should be. Lee has been sewing clothes for 16 years--half his life....

Tomorrow land: you don't have to look far to get a glimpse of what business in North Carolina might be like in 25 years.(25TH ANNIVERSARY)
October 1, 2006... During the 1990s boom, envy in some sections of North Carolina morphed into a kind of arrogance. Charlotteans no longer conceded that theirs was the second city of the South, behind Atlanta, and residents of the region around Raleigh and Durham...

Bricks & mortar.
October 1, 2006... Building the Winston-Salem estate of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Chairman Bowman Gray straddled good times and bad. Started in 1927 and completed in the Depression in 1932, construction employed as many as 136 workers at a time. Graylyn, with...