Layoffs down for '09

Spartanburg hit hardest in the Upstate

JANUARY 8, 2010 5:23 p.m. (0)

There were 266,330 unemployed South Carolinians at the end of 2009 and close to 2,700 of them were Upstate workers laid off in the previous 12 months.

As the nation continues to battle a crippling recession now in its third calendar year, area economic leaders said things will remain tough, but there has been job creation that has offset some of the layoffs.  Continue reading...

 

Never been poor, until now

Many formerly middle-income Greenville residents now find themselves seeking help to pay the bills.

JANUARY 24, 2010 10:11 a.m. (0)

It took Mark Davis and Donna Stolba about six months to join the ranks of the newly poor in Greenville.

Their story, say social workers, is depressingly familiar.  Continue reading...

 

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...

 

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...

 

County has a budget surplus

Kernell: extra $380,000 due to controlled expenses

AUGUST 26, 2010 10:31 a.m. (0)

Greenville County’s $380,000 budget surplus for the last fiscal year has its roots in conservative business practices and maximizing available resources, county officials have said.

The fact that Greenville has the largest population of any county in the state but ranks 43rd out of 46 counties in the number of employees per 1,000 residents is illustrative, said Joe Kernell, Greenville County administrator.  Continue reading...

 

Denny's income drops

AUGUST 27, 2010 7:08 a.m. (0)

Spartanburg-based Denny’s Corp. net income fell 42 percent in the second quarter, the company reported.  Continue reading...

 

Growth, in the time of recession

Pinnacle Bank adopts a different model for expansion

SEPTEMBER 5, 2010 6:32 p.m. (0)

When the economy was cooking and banks were growing, freshly minted Pinnacle Bank stayed in the slow lane.

Good move.  When the crash came, Pinnacle pulled away from the pile-up unharmed.

“We were not smart enough back in 2005, 2006 to know you were to grow it really fast,” says David Barnett, president and chief executive officer, who led the effort to establish a new community bank in Greenville’s competitive market.  Continue reading...

 

Economists see bright future here

The state's personal income is expected to grow this year

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 6:59 a.m. (0)

Clemson’s Bruce Yandle sees fiscal year 2010 as when recovery takes hold with 2011 being brighter economically for South Carolina than this year and 2012 as better still in his latest forecast on the state and national economies.

Yandle said the state’s basic economic engine is manufacturing and those numbers add up in the green for South Carolina this year. Other sectors of the economy are undeniably trashed, like construction, and are likely to remain so until the massive debt hangover from the burst housing bubble is paid off or worn down.

The state should see a sharp recovery in the growth of total personal income in the year ahead, Yandle said, and since that growth will be in real income and not inflation adjusted money, it will be the “real deal.”  Continue reading...

 

Growing Green

Eco-Mow forges ahead in tough market

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010 9:18 p.m. (0)

It’s not easy being green, and, as Chad Lane knows painfully well, it’s even harder if the green you need are dollars to bring an environmentally friendly riding mower to a market wedded to fossil fuels.

It’s been a tough 18 months for Lane’s Eco-Mow, the fledging Spartanburg company he and his wife Janice formed to build battery operated-riding mowers designed, engineered and built by Lane.  Continue reading...

 

Jobless figures up, but not by much

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010 2:16 p.m. (0)

A crisis of confidence and uncertainty about major federal legislation is helping to drive state and national jobless figures upward, said an economist with the University of South Carolina this week.

South Carolina’s jobless rate inched up to 11 percent in August, up from 10.7 percent in July, according to state figures.

“That’s not statistically significant,” said John McDermott, chair of the economics department at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. “While it is distressing that joblessness is up, the actual increase (0.3 percent) is quite small and can be explained through a variety of things like people coming back into the job market.”  Continue reading...

 

The taxing situation

South Carolina considers an overhaul

NOVEMBER 2, 2010 12:00 a.m. (0)

South Carolina’s business community hopes an opening created by a sales and income tax reform study will reopen what it sees as a job-killing shift of the burden of property taxes onto businesses.

When the legislature convenes in January with sentiment growing for overhaul of tax policy, along with required consideration of the study on sales and income taxes, business lobbyists again will push to repeal the law that raised sales taxes to give property tax breaks to homeowners.

Critics argue that 2006 law effectively placed the lion’s share of paying for K-12 education on business and industry, created a shortage in funding for schools, contributed to the state debt and produced a patchwork of sales tax exemptions, the biggest one being the tax on groceries.  Continue reading...

 

Haley: "Join the Movement"

Governor promises to ensure budget cuts don't cause excessive harm

MARCH 10, 2011 1:55 p.m. (0)

Gov. Nikki Haley was blunt during Monday night’s Town Hall Meeting at Greenville Tech; South Carolinians in all walks of life are going to hurt over the budgetary decisions brought on by the recession and past legislative actions.

But she promised to make smart choices and to do all within her power to make sure the cuts do not hurt the least of the state’s citizens excessively.

In a particularly sharp exchange with Henry Harrison, CEO of American Services, over planned increases on unemployment taxes for companies that laid off the most workers during the depths of the recession; Haley said she doesn’t listen to politicians.  Continue reading...

 

Cuts and restructuring

For builders, measuring success comes with both

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011 11:58 a.m. (0)

Upstate contractors doing industrial and manufacturing work are holding their own in this persistently sluggish economy, but small and midsized contractors dependent on commercial and residential building are hurting.

“We definitely are seeing a mixed bag,” said Brian Gallagher, marketing director of O’Neal, a Greenville engineering and construction firm that focuses on industrial and manufacturing. Business is “at or near pre-recession levels,” he said.

Things may have stabilized for contractors such as O’Neal that have the resources to take on large projects, but small and midsized firms that make their living on commercial projects – say, $1 million or less – are not only seeing no recovery, they are seeing further deterioration.  Continue reading...

 

Signs of change

Wells Fargo takes over final piece of Wachovia…the name out front

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011 11:30 a.m. (0)

Wells Fargo bankers believe they can build on the dominant state position inherited from Wachovia with greater resources and a culture allowing for more local authority.

With little fanfare, the conversion of Wachovia to Wells Fargo in South Carolina was completed Monday, nearly three years after the San Francisco bank agreed to acquire failing Wachovia in the worst days of the recession.

The acquisition propelled Wells Fargo to the nation’s fourth largest, a position Wachovia had held, with $1.3 trillion in assets.  Continue reading...

 

Palmetto Bank makes growth plans

Some cuts necessary to gain strength in market

JANUARY 5, 2012 1:59 p.m. (0)

With the economy and banking income slow to recover, Palmetto Bank is getting smaller to dig out of its post-recession hole and put itself in a position to get bigger when times get better.

The Greenville-based bank is unloading fringe branches, consolidating others, cutting staffing and outsourcing some back office functions. Its employment level will be reduced to where it was 12 years ago.

The bank said the economies annually will add about $6.1 million to its bottom line, although that will be offset by a one-time charge of $1.1 million in the last quarter of 2011 and the first of this year.  Continue reading...