Windsor gets 15 years on kidnapping charge

Former church deacon pleads guilty to charge in connection with bank robbery

JANUARY 15, 2010 9:03 a.m. (0)

Kristen Wiggs has faced bill collectors on a regular basis since the business her husband started right after college collapsed.

The couple has hung on financially – but barely.

But while they’ve struggled financially over the past two years, neither sought to solve their financial problems like Bruce Windsor did last February – by walking into a bank and holding two bank employees hostage for more than 90 terrifying minutes. One of the hostages was Wiggs’ mother-in-law, Lorraine Wiggs.  Continue reading...

 

SCB&T acquires Georgia bank

Move adds 36 locations to company holdings

FEBRUARY 1, 2010 10:21 a.m. (0)

With other banks still reeling from real estate losses, South Carolina Bank & Trust remained profitable throughout the meltdown and is using that strength to expand in the Carolinas and now Georgia.

In its latest expansionary move, SCBT Financial, the holding company for SCB&T, took over one of the oldest banks in Georgia, Community Bank & Trust of Cornelia, which was closed by the FDIC and the Georgia Department of Banking last Friday.  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...

 

Assets troubled?

A local real estate company is branching out to help

APRIL 4, 2010 9:30 p.m. (0)

A Greenville real estate company has established a division to help financial institutions with troubled assets.

The Marchant Co., founded in 1993 by Seabrook Marchant, will help financial institutions manage troubled assets, such as foreclosures and underperforming properties, by maintaining individual properties or meeting other needs.  Continue reading...

 

Park Seed will restructure

Greenwood company files for bankruptcy

APRIL 13, 2010 7:19 a.m. (0)

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Park Seed, the iconic Greenwood company that has provided generations of gardeners with quality seeds and plants, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week citing an overall decline in business due to the recession.

The Geo. W. Park Seed Company has been a mainstay in the Greenwood area since 1924.  Continue reading...

 

Working the wireless way

Coldwell Banker Caine moves toward a hub-style office

MAY 25, 2010 8:00 a.m. (0)

Coldwell Banker Caine Real Estate’s gallery in downtown Greenville is the prototype of what the company envisions as a new generation of space bringing sales agents, customers and the public together in accessible settings.

Brad Halter, company president, said the galleries blend an open public environment with working space for agents throughout the company’s Upstate sales force.  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...

 

First National delisted

JULY 16, 2010 6:30 a.m. (0)

First National Bancshares, its problems mounting, has lost its listing on NASDAQ for failure to get its stock price above a dollar for 10 consecutive trading days over a six-month period.

The Spartanburg holding company for First National Bank of the South was delisted by the exchange as of Thursday.  Continue reading...

 

New First National owner formerly worked at Bank of America

 

JULY 17, 2010 1:24 p.m. (0)

Federal regulators Friday put First National Bank of the South into receivership and turned it over to a private equity firm that will reopen branches of the Spartanburg bank Monday.

First National, along with two unaffiliated Florida banks, was taken over by NAFH National Bank of Miami, Fla., a banking arm of a holding company created by private investors led by former Bank of America corporate officers to scoop up failed banks. The holding company is based in Charlotte.

NAFH said First National’s 13 branches will be open for business as usual on Monday.  All employees l remain in place, the company said.  Continue reading...

 

How First National Bank of the South failed

 

JULY 21, 2010 6:58 a.m. (0)

Business was booming for First National Bank of the South in 2007, just eight years into its founding with ambition to grow from one Spartanburg office into a statewide force in banking.

That ambition crashed last Friday when the FDIC put the bank into receivership, closed its doors and sold it to a private equity firm created to scoop up failed banks.

First National reopened as business as usual Monday under the new owners.  Continue reading...