Business Blog

Tupelo-based BancorpSouth has earmarked $500 million for loans to businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to locate in our state, as well as for existing businesses looking to expand operations through a loan pool dubbed “Grow Mississippi 2013.” In announcing the initiative, BancorpSouth CEO Dan Rollins said additional funding will be added to the loan pool during [...]

“The new normal.” Those are an awful trio of words the nation’s nagging economic slump has left us with. They mark a concession that we are prepared to live with things that are less good than before, such as double-digit unemployment, underwater home values and — for downtown Jackson — historically high office vacancy rates. [...]

A hearing is set for April 3 in St. Louis to finalize the sale of three hotels owned by St. Louis-based Roberts Cos., owners of downtown Jackson’s shuttered Roberts Vista Hotel. The Jackson property, known for several decades as The Walthall, is not among the Roberts hotels to be sold April 3. The 85-year-old East [...]

Legislation to increase surveillance and deploy National Guard troops in schools, among other measures, could gain bipartisan approval in Congress – but only by sacrificing such education programs as financial literacy for students, Time.com reports. The school safety bill, introduced by Barbara Boxer of California, was originally going to spend $800 million on surveillance and [...]

Here is the White House says the across-the-board automatic budget cuts set to begin Friday under the fiscal sequester deal between Congress and the Obama Administration will mean for Mississippi. The cuts threaten hundreds of thousands of middle class jobs, and cut vital services for children, seniors, people with mental illness and our men and [...]

Get used to the idea of $85 billion in automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs starting next Friday under a sequester deal Congress made with the White House in August 2011. At least that’s the indication U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper gave during a stop Wednesday at the Mississippi Capitol for the Madison County Business [...]

  Mississippi Treasurer Lynn Fitch is halfway to her goal of initiating financial literacy requirements in the state’s public high schools. Her proposal, contained in House Bill 637, cleared the House Wednesday on an 118-1 vote. Similar support in the Senate would assure easy sailing for the measure. However, if the Senate does not act [...]

The Mississippi Economic Council Insight Tour has a couple of more weeks to go before arriving in Hattiesburg on March 1 for its final stop. The tour, which began in Gulfport on Jan. 24, is gathering thoughts and suggestions on strengthening the state’s business climate and offers participants a chance to network with business people [...]

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood now has ample company in a fight to force Standard and Poor’s to give up hundreds of millions it made in profits in exchange for suspect ratings of mortgage bonds before the financial crisis of 2008. In essence, enforcement actions filed Tuesday by the states and U.S. Justice Department accuse [...]

Mississippi manufacturers that want to begin export operations or expand current ones can get details on resources and other help available to them at a Feb. 7 workshop in Indianola sponsored by the Delta Regional Authority. Mississippi State University’s Franklin Furniture Institute is hosting the Getting to Know Your Export Resources workshop. It is funded [...]