Business Blog

By Ted Carter You can toss out public relations as a reason Regions Financial, parent of Regions Bank, wants to get rid of wayward brokerage and investment banking subsidiary Morgan Keegan. It comes down to money – specifically the $3.5 billion the Birmingham-based Regions still owes the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief program, analysts say. [...]

Belzoni-based BankPlus has named veteran banker Ted Williams its Rankin County president. The promotion puts Williams in charge of the bank’s Rankin County Banking Center, BankPlus said. He will work out of the bank’s Spillway Office. Williams has 23 years in the banking industry and has worked for BankPlus for more than four years. A [...]

A March 3 memorandum of understanding between TCI Investments and the City of Jackson shows deal The Dallas developer seeking to partner with the City of Jackson to build a $94-million convention headquarters hotel wants a rebate on 80 percent of the sales tax collected at the hotel for its first 10 years. The rebate [...]

Mississippi filmmakers recently wrapped “Valentine’s Day,” a tragic love story filmed in several Jackson locations with a local cast and crew and a budget under $20,000. Executive producer Robbie Fisher said, “What we tried to do was make this a beautiful, locally produced film to show what we can do.” The short film will likely [...]

Don’t rush down to the corner looking for a food vending truck just yet. Jackson City Councilman Quentin Whitwell’s plan for licensing food vending trucks and vending carts throughout the city received a public hearing last Tuesday but won’t get a final council vote until July 28, at the earliest. “We are continually tweaking this [...]

Reeling dairy industry faces more challenges South Mississippi’s dairy farmers are seeing the best milk prices in the history of the industry, but even that might not be enough to stop the steady, massive decline in dairy operations seen in the state. “It is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” said Alan “Pud” Stringer, [...]

Twin Creeks has openings; Stion on the way Mississippians interested in high-paying jobs at solar panel manufacturing plants need to visit Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia or Pearl River Community College in Hattiesburg. Higher-level solar jobs require a two-year degree in science or technology or a four-year degree in industrial or manufacturing engineering. Other [...]

Disbarring lawyers not a simple matter Disbarred. The fall from grace of a number of high-profile ex-attorneys such as Dickie Scruggs and Paul Minor have put that word in numerous headlines of late. Both Scruggs and Minor received felony convictions, which made their disbarment automatic. Automatic perhaps, but there is a set of rules and [...]

Solar panel manufacturers Twin Creeks Technologies and Stion were recruited to the state by the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA), and the projects received loans of $50 million and $75 million, respectively. Twin Creeks Technologies package According to MDA, the state provided $50 million in loan assistance through the Mississippi Major Economic Impact Authority (MMEIA) to [...]

By Ted Carter Role models are wonderful things, but sometimes you want to be careful about them. Such is the case with the aspirations of Mississippi’s business and civic leaders to be like Georgia. The Peach State in general and Atlanta in particular have had plenty of success to boast about over the last couple [...]