Small businesses get help

$2 million to be available this quarter

JANUARY 21, 2010 10:28 a.m. (0)

Entering the third year of being battered by the recession, The South Financial Group took steps to build a neglected business segment.

The company has created a 19-person department to become a bigger player in Small Business Administration loan programs in the Carolinas and Florida.  Continue reading...

 

TSFG board takes pay cut

Two more directors step down

FEBRUARY 11, 2010 9:12 p.m. (2)

The board of directors of The South Financial Group have cut their own compensation for 2010 and announced resignations of two more directors.

The board said in a statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission dated Feb. 11 that the compensation cut “represents a reduction of approximately 50 percent” and that the action was taken “in recognition of the current environment and management compensation levels.”  Continue reading...

 

Carolina First names interim president

Gompper has been with bank since 2005

MARCH 4, 2010 11:17 a.m. (0)

Christopher S. Gompper has been named interim president of Carolina First.

The appointment was announced by H. Lynn Harton, president and chief executive officer of The South Financial Group, holding company for Carolina First and Mercantile Bank in Florida.

Gompper fills the position left vacant when Scott Frierson resigned in September. Frierson had been appointed in June 2008 to replace Maurice J. Spagnoletti.  Continue reading...

 

Carolina First: Overhaul

Bank downsizes personnel, beefs up SBA programs

MARCH 15, 2010 9:00 a.m. (0)

The South Financial Group has shed several senior-level jobs to become a leaner company to help restore profitability and emerge from the recession as a more nimble bank, H. Lynn Harton, president and chief executive officer, said.

In the latest example, Christopher S. Gompper, 50, who had been executive vice president for corporate strategy, last week was named interim president of Carolina First, and his prior position was eliminated. Gompper joined TSFG in 2005.  Continue reading...

 

More good news than bad

Carolina First Center sees events decline, attendance rise

APRIL 2, 2010 8:21 a.m. (0)

Fewer events are being held at the Carolina First Center, but attendance is rising.

And the convention center which has been named a Facilities and Destinations Magazine 2010 Prime Site Award winner is on track to lose less money this year than it did last year.  Continue reading...

 

TSFG sells to Toronto company

MAY 20, 2010 12:21 p.m. (0)

In 20 years, The South Financial Group shot like a rocket from a small Carolina First office in Greenville to one of the nation’s 50 largest banks and South Carolina’s largest.

In less than three, it flamed out, burdened by soured loans in the credit and real estate collapse.  The estimated $1 billion anticipated in losses still to come – TSFG already had absorbed more than $900 million in loss – is a legacy of those go-go years.  Continue reading...

 

The fine print

By Dick Hughes

AUGUST 30, 2010 9:01 a.m. (0)

ScanSource Sets Revenue Record

ScanSource, the Greenville-based international distributor and reseller of technology products, had a good year with higher sales and income, but it could have been even better if it were not for product shortages, the company reported.  Continue reading...

 

Sold

TSFG now owned by Canada’s Toronto Dominion Bank

OCTOBER 6, 2010 11:14 a.m. (0)

With shareholder approval of the sale to TD Bank, Greenville’s homegrown but troubled Carolina First Bank sees new life as regional headquarters for TD in a merger that even revives possible use of Carolina First’s mostly unused $90-million campus off Interstate 85.

At a sparsely attended and brief shareholder meeting at Poinsett Plaza headquarters, The South Financial Group, the parent company, announced shareholder approval of the sale with 66 percent of the vote, all by proxy in advance.  Continue reading...

 

Carolina First expands services

Additional employees and hours expected to be added next year

DECEMBER 9, 2010 12:39 p.m. (0)

With the strength of the new ownership of TD Bank, Carolina First will add services and products that will help it regain market share and profitability in South Carolina, the bank’s new regional president said.

“The key for us really is the attitudinal change in the past year because of TD,” said Robert G. Hoak, who was named TD’s regional president for South Carolina and the five offices in Wilmington, N.C.

“The fact that we can be much more proactive than in the past, when our employees feel better, which they do, that will translate to our customers and to the market, and then profit will take care of itself.”  Continue reading...

 

Excuse me?

Manners, served here

APRIL 24, 2011 2:22 p.m. (1)

Emily Post has been dead for half a century and some say good manners died along with her.

But Sybil Davis, a graduate of the Protocol School of Washington and professor of hospitality arts at the Culinary Institute of the Carolinas at Greenville Tech, said proper etiquette and proper manners are more important than ever.  Continue reading...