Category Archives: Business

BB&T’s CEO Elected to the Board of Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

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BB&T's new CEO has been elected to the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.  From the announcement:

BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT) today said that Chief Executive Officer Kelly S. King has been elected to serve on the nine-member board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. 

King was elected to a three-year term as a "Class A director" by the stockholding member banks of the Fifth Federal Reserve District, which is served by the Richmond Fed. 

"This is certainly an honor, but also an important responsibility, particularly during these difficult times," said King, who succeeded John Allison as chief executive officer on Jan. 1. "Monetary policy is critically important. As a representative of BB&T, I'm looking forward to doing whatever I can to contribute to a meaningful dialogue around the economic issues facing us." 

Dead Pool

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Esbee's post about various states of local small businesses, some moving and some gone out of business, coincided with my discovery that the Back Yard Burgers in Lewisville has been closed since last month. Given that the Back Yard Burger website says "Under construction" I'm wondering if the whole chain went under.  After seeing that I'm tempted to start a "Dead Pool" for area businesses, but considering how depressing most of the economic news is these days it just feels too "icky."  

I will go so far as to say that my personal feeling is that the bloodletting in retail has just begun, and it hurts me to say that.  I love and respect entrepreneurs.  To me they're the true heroes in business, far more so than the titans who run the mammoth corporations.  Entrepreneurs put their financial lives on the line every day, while the corporate chieftains merely face public failure and perhaps losing their jobs.  Sure that's hard, but at the end of the day they still have their golden portfolios and they probably aren't facing the loss of their homes since they didn't have to put them up for collateral to finance their companies.

So let me say this loud and clear: Save the entrepreneurs and shop local.

Is Winston-Salem Pursuing GMAC? If Not, Should They?

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Talk about coincidence: a couple of days ago I was talking with some friends and we were discussing GMAC restructuring so they could get some of the government's bailout funds.  Someone asked where GMAC was headquartered and we all agreed that it was probably Detroit, but we weren't sure (we were in a bar and not inclined to do a quick online search).  The next morning I read that GMAC was indeed headquartered in Detroit, but they were considering a move to Charlotte because they already have operations there, the CEO used to be a Bank of America exec and kept his home in Charlotte after taking the position at GMAC, and they figure there will be some banking professionals looking for work when Wells Fargo starts laying people off.  (Since GMAC has restructured as a bank holding company they need to hire bankers).

So, are our economic development people here in Winston-Salem thinking about going after GMAC?  I think they should and here's why:
  • We have our own banking professionals suffering from the financial industry turmoil.
  • We have lots of nice office space ready and waiting. 
  • They'll be a bigger fish in our pond, thus more likely to get attention from our local leaders.  Businesses love that. 

Sure it's a long shot, but it's one of the better opportunities our community will probably see for a while so why not go for it?  And if someone says that we should play nice with our neighbors to the south my reply is, "Remember the Alamo merger!"  

Merchants Mirror: New Online Accounting Product Launched by Triad Company

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Ben Hwang, a resident of Winston-Salem, announced on his personal blog the launch of a new small business accounting product that his company created.  The product is called Merchant's Mirror and here's a little of what Ben wrote:

Those of you that know me on a personal level know that recently I've been working diligently on a startup with John Brown called Merchant's Mirror. In planning and development it's been over a year in the making and we're happy to announce that onJanuary 1st, we released it to the public. At $15.95USD per month, we provide a small business with everything necessary in accounting (and if you prepay a year, it's $169.95USD per year!) at a fair price.

Creating invoices for customers and paying your vendors doesn't have to be a difficult process, so why make it such? While only in our first release, we're already looking into methods and ways to make it easier for the small business owner to take full advantage of doing their accounting the way they can understand it, not because they're forced to do so.

There's one thing that we stress and that's the fact that we're not only writing this for our clients, but with our clients. That means that every person that uses Merchant's Mirror is in fact helping craft and shape the tool. Keeping track of your books shouldn't take you all day nor should it confuse you. And as such, we'll be striving to work with our customers on all things great and small to try to provide the best in SMB accounting.

Ben and I had a brief chat via IM last week and I could tell that he was excited to get this thing launched.  I don't even want to think about how many nights he and his business partner lost to developing this thing. 

If you're a small business and are looking for a new accounting product AND you'd like to "shop local" then you might want to give Merchant's Mirror a try.

Merry Christmas! Wanna buy an Ice Cream Shop?

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Merry Christmas!  I wish I could give this to you, but I don't have $99,000 lying around so I'm just going to point you in the right direction.  If you've ever dreamed of owning an ice cream shop you can buy a Cold Stone Creamery in Winston-Salem for a low, low, low $99,000.  If you end up buying it please remember me when I show up with one of my kids' teams in tow.  Discounts and gifts are always welcomed:)

Esbee’s Gift to Winston-Salem

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Esbee's been running a "Shop Local" series over the last few weeks and she's done us all the favor of compiling the local listings into two pages so you can check them out in two easy clicks.  Considering the traffic that Esbee gets to her site I have to believe that her features were a God-send to the local merchants she highlighted.

Actually the title of this post isn't quite accurate since Esbee is a gift to Winston-Salem; the series is just more of that gift.

Executive Compensation in Winston-Salem: Reynolds American

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Today's episode of "Executive Compensation in Winston-Salem" focuses on the company that at one time employed both my parents when they were students at Wake Forest.  It's the company that pops to mind when people think of business in Winston-Salem.  Why yes, it's Reynolds American Inc., and I have to tell you that what the execs at Reynolds are paid makes the folks I've already profiled at WFUBMC and Novant look like they're in the minor leagues.

My source for this information is the most recent proxy statement posted on Reynolds' website.  If you've never looked at one of these you should check it out: they spend page after page explaining their rationale for executive compensation.  It's really kind of overwhelming.  The numbers listed for each executive are for 2007.

Susan Ivey, Chairman of the Board, CEO and President of Reynolds American Inc..  She was paid a salary of $1,190,350, granted stock awards of $3,114,421, received non-equity incentive plan compensation of $4,243,000, pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings of $688,848 and all other compensation of $231,241.  Total: $9,467,860

Dianne Neal, Executive VP and CFO of Reynolds American Inc.  She was
paid a salary of $553,250, granted stock awards of $926,711,
received non-equity incentive plan compensation of $1,340,325, pension
value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings of $120,231 and
all other compensation of $341,593.  Total: $3,282,110

Daniel Delen, President and CEO of RJR Tobacco.  He was
paid a salary of $760,000 and a bonus of  $125,000, granted stock awards of $1,743,949,
received non-equity incentive plan compensation of $658,000 and
all other compensation of $212,532.  Total: $3,499,481

Jeffrey Eckmann, RAI Group President.  He was
paid a salary of $629,250, granted stock awards of $985,602,
received non-equity incentive plan compensation of $1,401,325, pension
value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings of $887,663 and
all other compensation of $269,821.  Total: $4,173,661

Tommy Payne, Executive VP – Public Affairs of Reynolds American Inc.  He was
paid a salary of $383,725, granted stock awards of $493,984,
received non-equity incentive plan compensation of $730,064, pension
value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings of $43,139 and
all other compensation of $227,425.  Total: $1,878,337

Executive Compensation in Winston-Salem: WFUBMC

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For today's episode of "Executive Compensation in Winston-Salem" I'm looking at the folks at that megalopolis otherwise know as Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

My source for the these numbers was Guidestar
and the numbers listed come from the most recent 990listed
for each organization on the site.  So if the most recent 990 is 2006
then I've listed the 2005 pay. Here we go:

For WFUBMC I looked at many of the executives team listed on their website's leadership page.
FYI, one of the challenges with looking at WFUBMC's information is that they've recently restructured, some execs have retired and others have been promoted.  Since the numbers are from 990s filed in 2006 (so they reflect 2005 compensation) I'm going to insert some of the retired executives' data for a frame of reference.  For the others I'm using their current titles but the pay reflects their pay in 2005 in what might have been different positions.

Donny Lambeth, Listed on website as President (Interim) and COO of North Carolina Baptist Hospital –
In 2005 he was paid $388,150 and had $45,625 in benefits and deferred
compensation. Total: $433,775.

Gina Ramsey, Listed on website as VP of Financial Services and CFO of North Carolina Baptist Hospital –
In 2005 she was paid $311,303 and had $38,970 in benefits and deferred
compensation. Total: $350,273.

Len Preslar, No longer with Baptist but in 2005 he was the CEO.  He was paid $609,240, had $59,668 in benefits and deferred compensation and he had $8,823 in expenses.  Total: $677,731.

Douglas Edgeton, Listed on the website as the Executive VP and COO of WFU Health Sciences and the President of Piedmont Triad Research Park.  In 2005 he
was paid $414,087, had $52,103 in benefits and deferred compensation
and he had $9,532 in expenses.  Total: $475,722.

Richard Dean, No longer with WFU Health Sciences but in 2005 he was the President and CEO. 
He was paid $854,153, had $179,625 in benefits and deferred compensation
and he had $7,282 in expenses.  Total: $1,041,060.

More on Triad Appliance Center

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Thanks to the Winston-Salem Journal's coverage of the court hearing about Triad Appliance Center we now know that the store is owned by The Langley Group Inc.  If you remember my earlier post, the one piece of information I couldn't gather by doing online searches about the business was the business name for the owner. I'd read that Thi Alderman, the ex-wife of Brad Ellison who was mentioned prominently in the articles about the customers' problems with the store, was the owner but I couldn't find her name anywhere in the state corporation filings.

Searching for The Langley Group Inc. on the North Carolina database of corporations I immediately found an active listing for The Langley Group Inc. that showed the business was formed in October of 2003, that John L. Barber is the listing agent, that the registered mailing address of 155 Sunnyknoll Court, Suite 200, Winston-Salem NC 27106, and that the principal business address that is the same as the store.  As an attorney for Wells Jenkins Mr. Barber is also the registered agent for 64 other companies so there's nothing odd about that at all.

The annual report filed with the state in 2004 shows Thi Ellison as the President and Treasurer and a Brian Ray as the Secretary.  The 2007 annual report shows Thi Alderman as the President and Treasurer and again shows Brian Ray as the Secretary.

A quick search on Google for "Brian Ray Winston-Salem" turned up an article at the Home Builders Association of Winston-Salem website about a 2006 fundraiser that was co-sponsored by Triad Appliance Center.  There's not a whole lot to be made of that other than the notion that until the store closed last week most of the information available about the store seemed to indicate it was a successful local company.  As recently as November of this year Thi Alderman was interviewed about the sales tax holiday and she had this to say:

Thi Alderman didn't know what to expect when the state switched on its first sales-tax holiday for energy-efficient appliances.

But after three days of "being overrun with customers" at Triad
Appliance Center in Winston-Salem, Alderman said yesterday that she
would be glad for the holiday to arrive more than once a year.

"I'd say we had four times our normal traffic during the tax-holiday
period" of Friday through Sunday, said Alderman, the owner of the
appliance store.

"People were buying front-load washers like crazy, including some of the $2,000 models.

"My wish for the next tax-holiday period is that with appliances
being such big-ticket items, many consumers need more than just three
days to shop," Alderman said.

So we're left to wonder what happened.  What role did Thi Alderman's ex-husband Brad Ellison play in all this?  As I outlined in the earlier post you have to wonder how he can claim ignorance when he owns the land and building that houses Triad Appliance Center and he acted as the sales person for at least some of the customers who filed complaints against the business.

Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network Shutting Down

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According to this article in TechJournal South the Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network is shutting down because the entities that funded it have decided to go in a different direction.

CEO Jon Obermeyer tells TechJournal South that the foundations backing
PTEN, the Winston Salem Alliance, Action Greensboro, and High Point
Partners, all economic development organizations, declined to continue
supporting it.

The foundations invested $2.75 million in the organization, which was founded in 2004.

"They decided we were not a priority," Obermeyer notes. "It had nothing to do with our results."

He admits the early stage companies PTEN backed are slow on job creation. Many are still in proof of concept…

The companies it backed have raised an additional $8.8 million.

PTEN also distributed $635,000 in prizes to 35 companies through
its annual PTEN GAP business plan competition and did it a unique way
intended to train the companies to deal with investors.

"We gave them the money in tranches and they had to meet
milestones," explains Obermeyer. If they won $30,000, we gave them
three tranches of $10,000 each. If someone was working on a patent, we
would want to see a patent filing."

PTEN also launched the first nanotechnology conference in North
Carolina and ran it for three years. It received national press
coverage in the industry publication, "Smalltimes."

It held an investor conference in August. It had companies from
Memphis, Charlottesville, the Research Triangle and elsewhere present
in additon to Triad firms…

"We worked with other organizations such as the NC Council for
Entrepreneurial Development and the Piedmont Angel Networks. We were
doing all the right things," says Obermeyer.

"My question now, is who's going to do this work?"

This is definitely a negative development for the Triad.  While groups like PTEN may not create lots of jobs in the short term they tend to foster the development of the kinds of companies that attract dynamic people who in turn accelerate innovation that seeps into the surrounding business community.  In other words they create energy that attracts innovators and builders and those are exactly the kind of people we need in the Triad right now.  I think we have plenty of bankers and lawyers, but we're hurting for true entrepreneurs.

BTW, anyone else see opportunity to fill the gap here?