The parent company of Bank of North Carolina said Friday that it plans to merge with Randolph Bank & Trust Co., in a deal that will grow BNC by six branches.
BNC Bancorp said terms call for Randolph common shareholders to receive $10.4 million in cash and shares of BNC common stock. BNC will also pay $8.7 million in cash to liquidate Randolph's preferred shareholders, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which bought Randolph shares in 2009 under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
High Point-based BNC, which last year bought Charlotte-based First Trust Bank, said the merger will also give it $168 million in loans and $270 million in deposits from Randolph, which is based in Asheboro.
The merger still needs approval from regulators and Randolph shareholders, but BNC said it is expected to be finalized in the third quarter.
BNC has four offices in the city of Charlotte. Randolph does not have branches in the Charlotte area.
Through the merger, BNC said, it will acquire three branches in Asheboro and one each in Burlington, Mebane and Randleman.
Among banks, BNC is No. 19 in Mecklenburg County when ranked by deposits. BNC has $49.4 million in deposits in the county, giving it a 0.03 percent share of the market.
The average North Carolinian has more unpaid medical debt, less savings and less financial knowledge than the typical American, according to a state-by-state survey of "financial capability" by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
North Carolina ranks second from the bottom in terms of percentage of the population with delinquent medical bills, at 36 percent. Only Mississippi is worse. The average is 24 percent.
In the other categories, North Carolina was only slightly below the U.S. average.
60 percent of North Carolinians reported not having a three-month savings fund. The national average was 56 percent.
35 percent in N.C. make only minimum credit card payments. It's 34 percent nationwide.
On a five-question financial literacy test, N.C. got 2.84 correct on average. The U.S. scored 2.88.
Both N.C. and the U.S. came in at 41 percent reporting spending less than they make each month.
You can check out South Carolina's results here.
Aquesta Bank is scouting locations for a new Huntersville branch, its first in the town and fifth overall, the bank told the Observer on Tuesday.
The Cornelius-based commercial bank also announced two new additions to its lending team, including one who will bring a new focus on retail loans.
They're the latest moves for a bank that's shifted "from defensive banking to a focus on growth," as CEO Jim Engel put it in a news release Tuesday.
The bank's shares began trading over the counter in June. Last month, it offered its first stock dividend. In the past year, it's also hired back its marketing director and opened a fourth branch in Mooresville. Later this year, it plans to roll out mobile banking.
The two new hires come from rival BlueHarbor bank, which is based in Mooresville.
John Reeves is now vice president and commercial loan officer covering Davidson.
Rick Eveson joins Aqusta as vice president and retail lending executive, a new focus for the bank. He will offer home equity, construction and residential loans to potential homebuyers and realtors.
Wells Fargo will roll out "sweeping changes" to its website in the next few weeks, aimed at organizing information and products around goals or life stages -- like going to college or retiring.
The bank has begun notifying customers that the changes are coming, pledging a "cleaner design" and suggestions on products that may be of interest.
"The goal is to bring the consultative service approach from our 6,200 stores to the online environment," spokesman Josh Dunn says in an email. "We also want to make it easier for visitors and customers to learn about financial topics, make good financial choices and ultimately get the financial products and services they need to succeed financially."
No worries, online bankers. Log-in information won't change.
Charlotte's NewDominion Bank is set to announce Thursday that it has finished the $10 million capital raise it's been working on for the past year.
Nearly all of it was raised from Charlotte residents, with an average investment of $40,000. The new method of fundraising was enabled in part by a new federal law that allows banks to have more investors before being required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The capital will go a long way toward helping NewDominion get out from under a regulatory consent order issued after the mortgage bust. The Charlotte bank's capital had eroded from losses on development loans. Since then, a new management team has been working to clean up its balance sheet.
The public outcry against big banks has died down over the past year, but Charlotte Metro Credit Union CEO Bob Bruns says his institution is still cashing in.
"People are dissatisfied with the service big banks deliver," he said. "More and more people are seeking an alternative."
Yeah, they've never been afraid to poke a stick at the big banks up the street. You may recall an ad or two featuring pigs and money-sucking bankers. But it appears to be working.
Membership jumped 10 percent last year at the credit union, making it the fastest growing in the state by that measure, according to consulting firm Callahan & Associates.
Charlotte Metro also closed this week on its largest business loan to date, a $2.5 million loan to buy a mixed-use building in Cornelius.
The Observer caught up with Bruns in his office at the credit union's building off Central Avenue. He's celebrating his 30th year as CEO as the credit union hits its 50-year anniversary. Here's a little more of what he had to say.
How do you plan to grow from here?
"It takes a little bit of everything, " Bruns said. Physical locations are important, and keeping the credit union's name out in the market with advertising.
But new branches are likely not in the offing, he said. Charlotte Metro has opened several new ones over the past few years, enough for now, Bruns said.
"We're focused on technology right now."
Mobile technology is at the top of the list, he said. Remote deposit capture -- that technology that lets you deposit a check using your smartphone -- will come soon. Charlotte Metro is also looking at peer-to-peer transactions using PayPal.
One technology that's not getting investment, though, is ATMs. Charlotte Metro does not participate in the national co-op that lets many credit unions share use of their machines. Why not? It's expensive, Bruns said. And ATM usage is dropping, he said.
"That's one we may skip," he said.
How are regulations affecting you?
The fallout of the financial crisis is indeed hitting credit unions in the form of new regulations, Bruns said. Charlotte Metro now has a full-time compliance officer, and the creidt union spends a lot of time reviewing disclosures.
It's manageable for a mid-sized institution like Charlotte Metro, but Bruns said he's worried about the impact on smaller peers.
"I'm afraid it may hurry about their demise," he said. He said he expects to see consolidation in the Charlotte market in the future.
How about relations with Congress?
Bruns was one of a handful of North Carolina credit union executives lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week. Issue No. 1: Their tax exemption.
As tax reform gains momentum, some committees have reportedly started looking at whether credit unions' tax exemption should be eliminated.
Bruns said he stressed the differences between banks and credit unions. Banks are owned by shareholders while credit unions are owned by their members.
"We're afraid if we were taxed, we'd go away," he said.
He also has been pushing for the ability to lend more to businesses. Federal law limits a credit union's business lending to 12.25 percent of its assets. Bills have regularly been filed to raise that to 27 percent.
Bruns said Charlotte Metro is at about half its current cap, but would ultimately like to see it eliminated.
"It's badly needed for the country," he said. "It will stimulate the economy significantly if they do that."
Four Park Sterling Bank board members were re-elected Wednesday at the company's annual meeting in Charlotte.
Leslie Baker, Larry Carroll and Ben Rudisill will serve until 2016, while Kim Price's term is set to expire in 2014, according to a securities filing.
Price and Rudisill became Park Sterling board members following the bank's $77 million purchase in October of Gastonia-based Citizens South Banking Corp. Price retired as Citizens South president and CEO as a result of the acquisition. Rudisill had been a director of Citizens South at the time of the acquisition.
Park Sterling, Charlotte's largest community bank, has taken off the pause button after a self-imposed moratorium on mergers and acquisitions that was in place while it completed its purchase of Citizens South.
FNB United Corp. said Tuesday it has gotten approval to merge its two banks: CommunityOne and Bank of Granite.
The two banks came together in 2011 in a $310 million joint recapitalization that shored up the two teetering institutions. But they had operated largely separate as executives worked to combine the charters.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has now given the OK to fold Bank of Granite into CommunityOne. The old Granite Falls bank's last day will be June 7. The branches will reopen as CommunityOne on June 10.
That means the CommunityOne name is headed to Charlotte. Bank of Granite has two Charlotte locations, uptown and in SouthPark.
FNB United is also looking for approval to change its corporate name to CommunityOne Bancorp. Shareholders will vote on the proposal at its annual meeting in June.
With Apple CEO Tim Cook's visit to Capitol Hill today, the country's attention is once again on U.S. companies keeping cash in foreign subsidiaries to avoid taxes.
Charlotte-based companies are in on the action as well -- to the tune of $22 billion in earnings kept overseas, an Observer review of securities filings shows.
Of course, the vast majority of that comes from Bank of America, the state's largest company by far and one with a large international presence.
Bank of America has $17.2 billion of undistributed earnings in off-shore subsidiaries, according to its latest annual filing. If it were brought back to the U.S., the Charlotte bank would have to pay $4.3 billion in taxes on it, the company estimated.
The figure isn't unusual for one of the nation's largest banks. Citigroup, for instance, has $42.6 billion of earnings offshore -- more than even Apple, filings show.
JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, keeps $25.1 billion of undistributed earnings in foreign units. Goldman Sachs comes in at $21.7 billion. Wells Fargo, with a smaller international presence, had $1.3 billion overseas.
Despite lawmakers' anger over this type of activity, none of it appears to be improper. Cook told senators Tuesday that Apple is complying with an outmoded tax system that disadvantages American companies, according to The New York Times.
It is unclear how much actual cash the undistributed earnings amount to. Companies that keep earnings in foreign units earn it there and say the money is reinvested there. But the figure is important in the discussion of U.S. tax policy and how companies should be allowed to move capital.
Among the next 10 largest companies in Charlotte and the surrounding towns, Duke Energy has the most in off-shore earnings, at $2 billion.
Insurance giant MetLife plans to have 500 jobs at its new Charlotte retail headquarters by the end of the year, executive vice president Eric Steigerwalt told investors at a conference Tuesday.
The other 800 will move in through 2014 and into early 2015, he said. For his part, Steigerwalt says he's moving to the city in five weeks, and he's bringing his entire leadership team with him.
He told the investors that he's been "very pleased" with his team's response to news of the move, which will consolidate nearly a dozen offices into a Ballantyne office building.
MetLife announced the Charlotte move in March with great fanfare. Another 1,300 or so jobs are going to Cary. It comes as the company aims to cut $600 million in annual costs by 2015.
The U.S. retail business sells individual life insurance policies and annuities.
(Steigerwalt talks about Charlotte at the 1 hour, 15 minute mark if you're interested in hearing).
Despite a shareholder advisory firm's recommendation against it, Charlotte-area businesswoman Crandall Bowles was re-elected Tuesday to the JPMorgan Chase board of directors, according to vote results from news accounts.
Bowles became CEO of Fort Mill's Springs Industries Inc. from 1998 until it became part of a Brazilian textile manufacturer to become Springs Global. She remains chairwoman of the pieces of the company that remain independent, which are still known as Springs Industries.
She was one of six directors that advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co. recommended be replaced.
There were two reasons. One, Bowles was a member of a board committee tasked with risk management that has come under scrutiny since that $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss last year. The firm also cited a conflict of interest because Springs Industries hired JPMorgan Chase to explore a sale of a Springs subsidiary.
All 11 directors were re-elected at the company's annual meeting Tuesday in Tampa. Shareholders also rejected a proposal that would have made CEO Jamie Dimon give up his chairmanship of the board.
The number of millionaire households in Charlotte is forecast to grow 18.2 percent over the next five years, according to a Nielsen Co. finding cited Tuesday by Bank of America.
The Nielsen finding is from 2012.
Also Tuesday, U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management, part of Bank of America, released the results of a survey of 711 high-net-worth people in the U.S. Those who participated in the survey have at least $3 million in investable assets.
The survey found, among other things, that many wealthy families are not planning for the long-term health care needs of their parents. Only 27 percent of baby boomers and 16 percent of those over age 68 said they ever expected that their parents might come to them for financial help.
Also, 60 percent of investors said asset growth is a higher priority than asset preservation. That's a reversal from a year ago, when 58 percent said asset protection was more important, according to survey results.
Phoenix Marketing International conducted the survey online in February and March, Bank of America said.
According to a report, released in February by the U.S. Census Bureau, 5.4 percent of Charlotte-area households are among the top 5 percent of the country's wealthiest, putting Charlotte at the 16th-lowest on the list. The finding was based on income received from January 2006 to November 2011, during which time the top 5 percent of U.S. households earned at least $191,469 a year.
We'll get our latest look today at the progress Bank of America, Wells Fargo and three other major banks have made on a $25 billion state and federal mortgage servicing settlement.
Settlement monitor Joseph Smith, the former N.C. banking commissioner, is set to release his latest report at 10 a.m. He'll provide details on the dollar figure of mortgage relief each bank reports having provided to homeowners around the country -- including principal reduction, short sales and second-lien extinguishments.
In an annual securities filing earlier this month, Bank of America reported that it had "substantially fulfilled" its requirements under the settlement. The Charlotte bank has asked Smith's office for a confirmation of its progress, but it is unclear whether that will be released today as well.
Smith's latest report, released in February, disclosed that banks provided $350 million in relief to about 7,600 borrowers in North Carolina through the end of 2012. About 10 percent came from principal reduction. A activist group demonstrated in front of Bank of America's headquarters last week, calling for more principal forgiveness from the nation's banks.
Ray Grace is getting closer to being confirmed as banking commissioner for North Carolina, with a resolution passing on first reading in the state House Monday.
Last week, the resolution, which confirms Gov. Pat McCrory's appointment of Grace, moved from the Senate to the House. On Monday, it was referred to the House's Committee on Banking, which is chaired by Rep. Ruth Samuelson, a Charlotte Republican.
Grace was named acting banking commissioner after Joseph Smith, in February 2012, resigned to oversee the roughly $25 billion national mortgage settlement.
Officials with the North Carolina Bankers Association told the Observer earlier this year that they expect the General Assembly to confirm Grace.
If confirmed, Grace would serve the remainder of Smith's term, which ends March 31, 2015.
Alliance Bank and Trust is pushing its commercial lending into the Lake Norman area with the hire of a market president for the area.
Woody Washam joins the Gastonia-based bank after spending nearly a decade in a similar role at CommunityOne Bank.
His hire is one of new Alliance CEO Don Harrison's first moves since taking the job last month. The move also reunites Harrison and Washam. Harrison most recently worked as executive vice president at CommunityOne.
"I've been sort of rebuilding the team here, reaching out to some folks I've worked with before," Harrison told the Observer. "It's just sort of a loan production strategy to reach out into the areas where we can find a veteran banker."
The hire also marks one of Alliance's few forays outside Gaston and Cleveland counties. The bank does not have any branches or office space in the area, and Washam is spending much of his time driving around calling on clients.
"This is sort of a new take on mobile banking" Harrison joked.
Harrison said Alliance does not have any plans for a retail presence around Lake Norman at this point, but did not rule it out in the future. He said the move should also not be seen as an indication the bank would look to grow into other submarkets in the area.
"We don't have any particular plans to expand in other areas at this point," Harrison said. "This was sort of an obvious fit. We had a need, and he was available."
But he said Alliance is attracted by "high growth" in the area as the bank works to rebuild its portfolio. Last year, actions from both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. required the bank to make plans to clean up problem loans and boost capital.
Wells Fargo said Monday that it will give 90 grants of $1,000 apiece to Charlotte-area nonprofits.
Recipients of the $90,000 in total grants range from the Carolina Raptor Center and a Charlotte cocker spaniel rescue group to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership and Charlotte Wine & Food Weekend.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo said employees in the bank's branches picked the grant recipients.
The grants come from the bank's Community Partners Program.
York County Christian Women's Job Corp.
JPMorgan Chase will be rolling out the red carpet uptown next week to tout its growing commercial lending team in Charlotte and celebrate its move into the Hearst Tower -- right in Bank of America's backyard.
The open house Wednesday will be at the Foundation for the Carolinas building , just a few steps from Bank of America's headquarters. Gov. Pat McCrory and state commerce secretary Sharon Decker are scheduled to be in attendance, along with a number of local business executives.
The New York bank has built its commercial lending team in Charlotte, which lends to businesses with more than $20 million in annual sale, significantly over the past two years. In August, JPMorgan Chase expanded the group from three members to eight. Two of them came from Bank of America, the rest from other parts of the bank.
Since then, Chase has added to the team and now has 15 bankers in the Charlotte group, a spokeswoman said. It's now moving into space in the 46-story Hearst Tower on Tryon Street.
The bank's Charlotte activities will continue Thursday, when JPMorgan is sponsoring a panel discussion on Charlotte's place in the global economy hosted by the Charlotte Business Journal at the Ritz-Carlton uptown.
Former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, who's now a senior adviser at JPMorgan, is scheduled to give the keynote speech.
About 20 activists with progressive group Action NC rallied outside Bank of America's headquarters uptown Friday morning, calling for more principal reduction to delinquent homeowners underwater on their mortgages.
The group also released a report that estimates Charlotte families lost more than $1 billion in wealth through foreclosures in 2012. The brunt, the group says, has been borne by minority communities.
In just its first five months in Charlotte, microfinance nonprofit Grameen America says it has helped 300 people launch businesses that could lift them out of poverty.
In December, Grameen America gave out the first five loans from its new Charlotte branch, in Grameen's signature increments of $1,000 to $1,500.
Through this week, nonprofit leaders say it's lent more than $300,000. The money goes to buy a commercial sewing machine, for example, or to secure a chair at a hair styling salon. Food and catering businesses are also popular.
The nonprofit's staff at the International House on Central Avenue has also added three loan officers, with plans to grow to 10. Ultimately, Grameen hopes to have up to 4,500 borrowers in its first five years.
The organization celebrated its early success and formally launched its Charlotte office at a grand opening ceremony Thursday evening at Packard Place. The nonprofit's CEO, Stephen Vogel, was in town.
"With 300 borrowers in less than six months, Grameen America has demonstrated that there is unprecedented demand in Charlotte for microloans," he said in a statement. "Over the next few years we hope to reach every low-income woman in Charlotte with an entrepreneurial dream."
Grameen America is an expansion of the nonprofit started by Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh in the mid 1980s. The project eventually won the Nobel Prize.
Wells Fargo is the primary sponsor of the Charlotte location, with a $500,000 donation. Grameen borrowers also get a no-fee, no minimum balance checking account with the bank.
It's been a little more than a year since Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group entered Charlotte by acquiring RBC Bank's Raleigh-based U.S. business.
The anniversary of the deal was in March. In September, PNC hired Weston Andress to oversee the bank's western North Carolina operation, which is composed of 57 branches, including 17 in the Charlotte area.
On Wednesday, in an interview with the Observer, Andress talked about PNC's progress in the Charlotte area over the past year and the bank's plans for the coming months, including where it is considering opening branches. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., PNC is No. 10 in the city of Charlotte when ranked by deposits.
One of the bank's focuses has been building a wealth-management business in western North Carolina. RBC's wealth-management operation was not part of the sale.
But in a market flush with banks, PNC's aware of the challenge.
"As you would have imagine, the competition is fierce, to say the least," Andress said.
Initially, given the lack of (PNC) branches and the lack of a retail network here, our business and focus has really been on the commercial and corporate sector. It'll be nice when we have some more branches, because that's additional advertising. But … the retail (banking industry) ... is really not very profitable, if profitable at all, right now.
We're making much more headway on the commercial and the corporate and our wealth-management business, areas where we lend money but there's also a heavy dose of sort of fee generation or fee services that … can increase our return. RBC had a very strong commercial banking business, and what we've tried to do is increase that to a scale that is more proportional to what PNC is used to and the kind of business we want to have here. We've also brought in a number of commercial corporate bankers to service our larger, middle-bank-market customers. That business is really well; you don't go out and take customers away from what is some very good competition out there on a daily basis, but we've had our share of wins there.
We expect to build some more. That'll take time, and those branches that we do decide to build may not be the full-fledged branches that you see out there. They could take a different shape or form; all that's still very much under consideration. You would have full-service branches and then maybe some other minibranches with interactive capabilities so that you can talk to somebody in the mortgage department or talk to a specialist in a particular area.
We're looking right now at a number of different locations in areas around Charlotte, certainly south Charlotte, which would be a primary growth area, but in other areas as well. South Charlotte, obviously, is where the growth is for now.
We're very community-oriented, which to Charlotte, if you're not community-oriented, you can forget about it. PNC is a do-the-right-thing company. We have an (early childhood) initiative called Grow Up Great: The company has a commitment of $300 million, over a 10-year period, to contribute in the various markets around the country. What we do in the community is well beyond that: We've given to the arts. We've given to community development. Just this year we've given away $1 million to various groups.
It's hard to say, from a dollars perspective, that we are going to be a rival to BofA or Wells Fargo here. That's a difficult proposition from where we sit. What we're going to do is pick out certain areas where we can be very involved and play a meaningful role. Obviously, we want to be recognized and get our name out there, as BofA or Wells or anybody else would. We gave half a million dollars last year to Discovery Place, Community School of the Arts and the Bethlehem Center. We're involved with most of the arts groups, whether it's the Mint Museum or the Bechtler. That really puts us more in the position, I would say, of sponsoring programs and exhibits versus building buildings.
We think there's room for us. Charlotte's economy is growing. It's not growing as fast as we might like. It still has a high unemployment rate. Part of that's because people keep moving here. The job growth hasn't kept up with all the people that continue to move here. We feel like this is a market … (that's) very community- or philanthropically oriented, and that's the kind of bank that PNC is. There's clearly a role for another big bank, and maybe more, to step in and play meaningful roles in the community.
We've built out a team, led by a guy by the name of Mike York, who had been at Wells Fargo wealth management. And he now has a full team in place of 12 or 13 people. We are slowly but surely – not really that slowly – building that business. The lending side of it comes a little faster than the asset-management side and some of the other sides of the business. We are introducing that to our existing customer base – commercial and corporate executives – as well as using some relationships we have that are really not part of our customer base right now.
We also have a (family wealth) group called the Hawthorn group … and there are a number of well-known families in this area that that group does business with. It's not as if we're starting up this thing from scratch. It's a matter of taking what's been successful elsewhere and growing it in this market. It'll take time, but we're going to get there.
You're likely to see more of that, rather than less advertising. We won't sustain this forever. But certainly we're trying to build momentum, and we've got some momentum. We're trying to sustain that, for sure. The more branding, the better.
It's not price. Today competition is fierce, and loans are priced very aggressively. I would say that we are competing on service. We think we've got some of the best people in the business focused on the middle-market sector of the market. We're trying to grow a middle-market commercial and corporate banking business. We're aggressively trying to grow this franchise. So, our argument is they're going to get more attention from us than they certainly would from one of the bigger guys.
We have spent the technology dollars on things, like treasury management, that some of the big guys have. But we have the decision-making and the focus that you would get from maybe one of the community bank competitors here. Our value proposition is we're sort of the best of both worlds: a community-oriented bank with support from a very big parent that is aggressively trying to make this work. And, again, so far, so good.
This is a company that's been around for 160 years and really is about the size today of NationsBank and Wachovia and First Union back in the 1990s, almost in the heyday of Charlotte banking, when those institutions still had real cultures, personalities. There are a lot of personalities within PNC. Our recently retired CEO, Jim Rohr, who now is the chairman, really sort of established this culture. It seems that Bill Demchak is following in his footsteps and plans to keep a lot of that.
That's what we're trying to do in this market: We're trying to take that type of culture and focus solely on the banking business. We don't have aspirations to be out in the equity business or the bond business in a huge way. We do have some capital markets operations in the bond area. But we're not going to go out and buy an investment bank, in all likelihood.
Greensboro-based NewBridge Bank said Wednesday it has taken the final step to unwind from the federal financial crisis-era bailout program.
A month ago, the bank's $52 million preferred stock investment from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program was sold at auction. NewBridge has now spent $7.8 million to repurchase the warrant the U.S. Treasury held to buy common stock in the bank.
North Carolina banks with bailout investments still on their books have been paying them back or seeing them auctioned to private investors at a rapid clip since the Treasury said it wanted to get out of the program last year.
Charlotte-based NewDominion Bank announced Wednesday that its business customers will now be able to deposit checks using their smartphones.
Individual customers have had access to the popular technology since last year. A number of the larger banks, like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and BB&T, have rolled out the service over the past year as well.
Essentially, you take a photo of the front and back of your check using a smartphone app to deposit the money.
In NewDominion's business offering, multiple users will have the ability to deposit checks to a bank account. Any deposits before 5 p.m. will be processed for the next business day.
Wells Fargo's mobile banking experience scores higher than Bank of America's, according to a ranking, released Wednesday, of 15 major banks.
JPMorgan Chase topped them all, though, on the spring scorecard produced by San Mateo, Calif.-based Keynote, which launched the rankings in 2011. Chase has come in at No. 1 for three years in a row.
Banks were evaluated based on five modes: text, mobile Web and iPhone, Android and BlackBerry apps. Of the modes, BB&T was named a leader for text banking and Bank of America for its Android app.
Chase performed best in two of four categories, functionality and ease of use, while Wells Fargo led in privacy and security.
The scorecard comes out twice a year. Susan Fould, manager of the scorecard, said it helps banks improve their mobile-banking platforms.
"They use it to benchmark themselves and to understand where they have gaps," she said.
She said one big takeaway from the spring scorecard is that banks are improving the experience of using mobile-banking technology.
"There's more functionality," she said.
According to Keynote, which specializes in Internet and mobile cloud testing and monitoring, the number of mobile-banking consumers is expected to hit 1 billion by 2017.
A green muppet-looking character says he smells "BS" -- that's "bank speak," you guys -- as he tags along with a mortgage-seeker in Charlotte-based LendingTree's new ad campaign.
The mortgage-shopping company is making a huge investment in the new marketing, parent company Tree.com CEO Doug Lebda said during its quarterly earnings results Tuesday. Sales and marketing expense jumped 60 percent in the quarter as Tree.com prepared to roll out the ads, which will air nationally.
consumers," Lebda told analysts. "Our brand is a huge asset for us."
The company is still keeping its slogan -- "When banks compete, you win."
Industry publication Ad Age breaks down the campaign a bit more here.
A dozen North Carolina credit union executives are in Washington D.C. this week, spending most of their time lobbying lawmakers who are dealing with tax reform.
As not-for-profit entities, credit unions are exempt from corporate taxes. Banks aren't too happy with that, especially as credit unions have grown larger and expanded into more services. The tax exemption has also been raised by House committees and public policy groups working on tax reform.
Credit Union National Association CEO Bill Cheney has said keeping that tax exemption is his organization's top priority.
North Carolina's credit unions will be stressing their "critical difference in structure and purpose," N.C. Credit Union League spokesman Jeff Hardin told the Observer.
They'll also lobby on financial capital requirements, regulations and efforts to raise caps on their small business lending.
Greensboro-based NewBridge Bank said Tuesday that its first full-service retail branch in Charlotte was opened in a soft launch May 1.
The 6,000-square-foot branch is in SouthPark, at 5925 Carnegie Blvd. The bank had announced plans for the branch in February, but it did not provide a specific opening date at the time.
The community bank already operates a Charlotte loan-production office focused on commercial lending and mortgage banking. NewBridge has said it plans to relocate that operation, at 6000 Fairview Road, to the full-service branch.
In an interview with the Observer earlier this year, David Barksdale, then NewBridge's chief banking officer but now its chief strategy officer, said the full-service Charlotte location will not be a standard retail branch.
"There will not be a drive-through lane, and there will not be a traditional teller counter," he said. "With the change in technology in today's banking world, and the diminishing importance of a retail branch, we're putting a new prototype in Charlotte that will be more of an office look than a retail branch look."
Wells Fargo is considering putting one of its new minibranches in Charlotte, but it would not be open to the general public.
Kendall Alley, the bank's Charlotte-area president, said Monday that Wells might open the branch in its Customer Information Center off West W.T Harris Boulevard, where 10,000 Wells Fargo employees work. As part of a possible pilot project, the minibranch would go in the center and be available only to Wells Fargo employees who work there, Alley said.
"That's a great spot for piloting ideas," he said. "Our team members have no hesitation to give us feedback whenever they think we need to do something better."
Last month, Wells Fargo unveiled the new branches, which it described as having a "neighborhood bank format." The bank picked Washington, D.C., as the test market for the first branch, which is about one-third the size of a typical Wells Fargo branch, or "store," as the bank refers to them.
The smaller branches are being introduced as Wells Fargo tries to cut costs through reducing the amount of space it uses. Last year, the bank decreased the amount of space it occupies by 4.5 million square feet, according to its annual report. Since 2008, the company said, it has reduced its square footage by 16 million square feet.
At roughly 1,000 square feet, Wells' new type of branch is much smaller than its traditional branches, which range from 3,000 to 4,000 square feet.
"That store requires less space," Alley said. "But we feel like it's got an awful lot of ways that we can have great conversations with our customers.
"I would hope that we would have a lot of those in the Charlotte area in the future, whether that's one year, four years, five years. Some of that depends on traffic patterns in the stores."
Alley, like many others in the banking industry, says there's still a need for branches, even though customers are increasingly using online and mobile banking.
"We still have more than sufficient volume in the stores to support the stores we have," Alley said.
When Tom Heiks moved to Charlotte three years ago, he had never been to a NASCAR race. At this point, the CEO of Fifth Third Bank's North Carolina affiliate is a regular. His wife, Heiks jokes, is an even bigger fan.
But the sport has also turned into a bit of business for Fifth Third, Heiks told the Observer on Monday. Over the past year, the bank has built up a team and strategy around financing and serving the state's $6 billion motorsports industry.
Such a vertical isn't particularly novel in the banking world. SunTrust has a motorsports team, for instance. And Bank of America became the "Official Bank of NASCAR" in 2007, a partnership that included commercial lending as well as branded retail products.
But the Fifth Third team is one of the bank's relatively few clusters within its commercial bank. Health care, energy and manufacturing are notable others.
The focus stems from Fifth Third's commercial lending expansion in the state since it acquired Charlotte-based First Charter in 2007. The bank brought on some new bankers with experience in motorsports, who approached executives about creating a concentration, Heiks said.
It also comes from the partnership with Concord-based Roush Fenway Racing the bank entered into last May. Fifth Third was the primary sponsor for Matt Kenseth's No. 17 car in four races last year -- complete with the bank's blue logo on the hood. Fifth Third is sponsoring Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the same number car this year.
NASCAR makes its way back to Charlotte this weekend with the Sprint All-Star Race on Saturday. Yes, Heiks says he'll be there.
Setting those aside, though, the parent company of Cabarrus Bank and Trust, Bank of Stanly and Anson Bank and Trust increased profit to $763,000 from $700,000 as mortgage banking revenue increased.
Those preferred stock payments will be cut nearly in half in the coming quarters. It repaid three-quarters of its Troubled Asset Relief Program federal bailout investment last month. Uwharrie plans to pay back the rest in the next 18 months.
The company is also in the middle of combining and rebranding its three banks under one name. The change will save an estimated $750,000 to $1.2 million per year in overhead and compliance costs.
Wells Fargo said it will increase the number of bankers who work with small businesses in its U.S. branches this year, after boosting its number of such specialists last year.
But the bank is not saying how many employees it plans to add or the markets where they will be deployed, leaving it unclear whether any of the hires will be made in the Charlotte region.
From March 2012 to this past March, Wells Fargo's Carolinas branches added 118 bankers whose focus includes working with small businesses, spokesman Josh Dunn said.
Wells Fargo's announcement, made this week, comes after the bank reported that its first-quarter business-banking activity strengthened compared with the same quarter the year before. Year over year, the bank saw an uptick in business checking accounts and credit card activity and loans to small businesses.
According to the bank, it grew the number of bankers who work with consumers and small businesses in its U.S. branches by more than 1,500 from March 2012 to this past March. The bank said it was an increase of 5 percent.
Last year, Wells Fargo said it lent $16 billion to small businesses, an increase of about 30 percent from 2011. The bank defines small businesses as those with annual revenues of less than $20 million.
Wells is not the only big bank adding small-business specialists or reporting a rise in lending to such businesses.
Smaller banks expect to see a rise in small-business lending, too. Raleigh-based VantageSouth Bank is relocating its government guaranteed lending operation from Salisbury to Charlotte as it plans for an increase in Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture Business and Industry program lending.
Jason Ferreira, a Wells Fargo personal banker who works in Charlotte, said one driver of small-business lending at his branch has been middle-aged people starting businesses, such as consulting firms. This year, he said, he expects his branch to see as much as a 25 percent increase in small-business activity over 2012, thanks to rising demand for small-business loans.
"I can tell you from my experience that the appetite is huge right now," said Ferreira, who works in a branch on Rea Road.
In North Carolina, Wells Fargo's U.S. Small Business Administration lending surpasses that of all other banks. From October to the end of April, Wells Fargo's SBA loans totaled $25.2 million, according to the SBA.
While Bank of America's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday felt at times like a nonstop parade of coal industry critics, also in the audience were shareholders who had other concerns.
The Observer talked to some of those shareholders before the meeting at the Charlotte Marriott Center City hotel to see what brought them to the event and how they feel about the stock as an investment.
Goozner, 67, who sat in the bank of the meeting room, said it was his first time attending a Bank of America shareholders meeting.
On the one hand, he had good things to say about the stock. On the other, he said he wished the quarterly dividend were higher than 1 cent per share. He said his octogenarian mother-in-law, who owns Bank of America shares, is in a retirement community and could especially use a higher dividend.
"My poor mother-in-law," he said. "She's a retired teacher. She's relying on, of course, Social Security, a pension from North Carolina. She also has some money with the teachers credit union. And that's going to be depleted, obviously. She's in her 80s. She's going to last longer than her money."
In March, the bank said it will repurchase up to $5 billion in common stock, rather than raise the dividend, after winning approval from the Federal Reserve for its capital plan.
"I want to see the bank raise their dividend," said Goozner, whose Bank of America investment includes 8,000 shares of common stock. He also said he owns shares of the bank's preferred stock.
Goozner said he'd like to see the dividend increased to about 6 cents a quarter.
"That would be a good base to start raising the dividend," he said.
He said some of his family members have sold their Bank of America shares. But he's been hanging on.
"The stock itself has been outperforming the market," he said. "I think it's definitely on the upside. I really see the risk-reward ratio highly favorable on the reward side right now."
Edwards, who drove into Charlotte from Missouri Tuesday night to attend the meeting, said he came to find out where Bank of America was headed.
He's a former hospice administrator who now works on a 200-acre family farm, which he plans to sell to focus on his consulting firm for hospices.
Edwards said he bought shares of Bank of America stock in 2010, 2011 and 2012. On his mind Wednesday: the litigation that has dogged the bank and reduced its earnings power.
"Earnings power, it's not where we'd like it to be, obviously, as a shareholder," he said. "The litigation ... that's affected the bottom line every quarter and has for several years."
"Frankly, if litigation was behind the company, it (the stock) would pop up to ... probably between tangible book and net book value. I still think it's undervalued."
Edwards said Moynihan has done as good job as CEO.
"He inherited a mess," he said.
For now, he said, he doesn't plan to by more Bank of America shares.
"I've got as much or more than I should have already. If the stock price gets a little higher, I'll probably lighten up over time to diversity a little bit more."
The latest Falfurrias Capital Partners fund has crossed the halfway mark toward its $200 million goal, according to a securities filing Wednesday.
The Charlotte private equity firm led by former Bank of America executives, including long-time CEO Hugh McColl, officially disclosed the fund in 2011. It's now raised $105.7 million.
The second offering follows an initial fund launched in 2006. That first $97 million fund has made a half-dozen investments so far.
The firm focuses on middle-market companies in the Southeast.
Bank of America believes it has "substantially fulfilled" its requirements to reduce principal, lower interest rates and otherwise help homeowners as part of the large-scale mortgage servicing settlement last year, the Charlotte bank said in a quarterly securities filing Tuesday.
The bank had been required to pay a total of $11.8 billion, including cash payments to regulators and mortgage relief directly to borrowers -- the most of any of the five banks in the $25 billion settlement.
Settlement monitor Joseph Smith, a former N.C. banking commissioner, must certify banks' completion of their requirements. He's already done so for Ally Financial, which had the smallest portion of the settlement.
Bank of America was not immediately available for comment.
The bank did not provide a final breakdown of where relief went in its securities filing, which cites activity through March 31.
Smith's latest published report, which covered relief through Dec. 31, said Bank of America had reported a total of $26.8 billion in relief. Not every form of mortgage help receives dollar-for-dollar credit under the settlement.
In the filing, Bank of America also notes that it may be subject to more scrutiny and litigation related to its mortgage servicing. On Monday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced his office would sue Bank of America and Wells Fargo over alleged violations of the settlement's new servicing rules.
Update: According to a statement from Smith's office, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have all asked for a review of their progress so far. That will be released "in the coming weeks," Smith said in a statement. The next public report will be May 14.
Charlotte-based contract food service company TrustHouse Services has been sold to Parisian catering company Elior SCA, according to an announcement Tuesday from investment banking firm McColl Partners, which advised on the deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.
TrustHouse was created in 2008 through a partnership between former Compass Group CEO Michael J. Bailey and private equity group Gryphon Investors.
The two parties purchased three regional contract food service companies that operated in a total of 22 states. The firm then began targeting other acquisitions in the food service sector at schools, hospitals and prisons. McColl Partners advised on those deals as well.
Operations expanded into 45 states and core earnings quadrupled, McColl Partners said.
A handful of anti-Bank of America protesters with the Rainforest Action Network gathered in uptown Charlotte on Tuesday morning ahead of Wednesday's annual shareholders meeting to address the bank's funding of coal projects. Here are a few of their thoughts.
BB&T expects job losses in Charlotte to be "minimal" as the bank begins restructuring, Charlotte metro regional president Wes Beckner told the Observer on Tuesday.
The restructuring comes as BB&T turns its focus to cost savings this year, mirroring many of its peers that have already done so. Bank of America has cut nearly 27,000 jobs since beginning a cost-cutting initiative in fall 2011 known as Project New BAC. Wells Fargo, too, has reorganized some of its operations.
BB&T had been divided into 37 regions, a number that will be cut to 23. One of those regions will remain based in Charlotte.
Its territory, however, will expand from a territory roughly encompassing Mecklenburg County and its bordering counties. It will now stretch north into Hickory and west as far as Haywood and Jackson counties. Beckner will continue to lead the region. Former city executives will become market presidents, Beckner said.
BB&T, based in Winston-Salem, employs more than 1,500 in Charlotte, many in an uptown office tower. The bank hasn't given any figure for how many jobs will be cut company-wide as part of the restructuring.
"When you combine regions, there will be some redundancy," Beckner said. "The impact here will be very minimal. ... We'll take advantage of attrition over time to absorb it."
For many college students majoring in business, the name Warren Buffett probably comes up in the course of their studies.
But few business students get the chance a handful attending Wake Forest University did Monday, when they were picked to ask the prominent investor a question during a live segment on Fox Business Network.
Fox allowed master of business administration students to pick the brain of Buffett, who was in a Fox studio, while the students were filmed as they questioned him from what appeared on television to be their classrooms. Students at New York's Columbia Business School also participated.
Alex Sturges, a student at Winston-Salem-based Wake Forest, asked Buffett, 82, what keeps him "coming to the office every day" after already achieving as much as he has.
"I am doing what I love the most in life," Buffett said.
Buffett added that he advises students "to try and find the job they would have if they were independently rich. And I've found that job.
"I could be doing all kinds of other things, but I would so much rather be coming to the office every day than sitting on a yacht."
The New York attorney general's office is set to announce lawsuits against Bank of America and Wells Fargo, claiming documented violations of the sweeping mortgage settlement between states and five big banks last year, according to an announcement from the office.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office has found 339 violations between the two banks. It is unclear what violations what type they are. The $25 billion settlement, reached last year, included a slate of more than 300 new servicing rules each bank is required to follow.
But thousands of complaints have continued to pour into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Observer found earlier this year that banks have continued some practices the settlement was intended to eliminate, like "dual tracking" homeowners through loan modifications and foreclosure processes at the same time.
The suits could pave the way for other state attorneys general to take similar actions. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper was one of the chief architects of the settlement. Former N.C. banking commissioner Joseph Smith, who is now overseeing the settlement, is scheduled to a release a progress report on the banks' adherence to the settlement later this spring.
Charlotte and the rest of the U.S. may be due for a slow-down in home prices toward the end of the year if long-term interest rates rise, Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner said Friday morning -- which he expects to happen.
Investors have been pouring money into pools that invest in single-family homes, drawn by their 5 percent to 6 percent returns at a time when interest rates are at record lows. At this point, housing has become "a little bit of a bubble," Vitner told a group of Wells commercial real estate bankers and clients at a breakfast event.
Vitner described a meeting with a young investor out of New York City, who came to Vitner's Charlotte office to talk about where he should buy houses in Charlotte, Raleigh and Atlanta with the $100 million he had raised.
"I asked him, 'Do you even own a house?'" Vitner said. He did not. Later, Vitner related, "He was asking, 'Now, where is Ballantyne?,'" implying that the capital flowing in to home-buying isn't necessarily the most knowledgeable about the housing markets it wants to invest in.
That could soon change. Vitner said with inflation risk low, the Federal Reserve will likely continue to keep interest rates low. But by the end of the year, he expects the Fed to scale back on its purchase of securities -- known as quantitative easing.
When that happens, the rate on the 10-year U.S. Treasury could rise to around 3 percent. That will make riskier housing purchases less attractive. It won't be enough to produce a bust, he said, but will make price increases slower.
On today's jobs numbers: Employers added 165,000 jobs in April, a Friday report showed, beating expectations. Vitner said that the bulk of those jobs are coming from part-time workers in the leisure, hospitality and retail industry. They're not full-time hires because of the upcoming costs of health care, he said. Still, "The economy doesn't look as precarious as it did yesterday."
On consumer confidence: The affuluent are feeling a lot better about the economy than the middle-class, Vitner said. That's reflected in retail results in local markets. The top mall in a market is doing well. The No. 3 mall is "sucking wind." In Charlotte, Vitner said SouthPark Mall is doing great while Carolina Place in Pineville is struggling.
On the local economy in general: "The economy here is gaining some momentum," Vitner said, and growing between 1.5 and two times as fast as the nation as a whole. Both Charlotte and Raleigh are in the top five fastest growing metro areas since the 2010 census, and Charlotte is the largest on the list.
South Carolina boom town: Charleston."If there's an economy that's closest to booming in the South, it's Charleston." Just one example: Boeing's put a billion dollars into the city since 2009, and will put another billion in the coming years.
Bank of the Ozarks is the No. 1 submitter of bids for failed banks, according to a report by SNL Financial.
The Little Rock, Ark.-based bank, which opened its first full-service branch in Charlotte in March, submitted 61 disclosed bids to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from Jan. 1, 2009, to April 26, according to the SNL findings released Thursday.
But only seven of the bank's submissions were winning bids.
Also, Bank of the Ozarks' 61 bids were almost double the number of submissions by the No. 2 bidder, Conway, Ark.-based Centennial Bank, which bid on 35 failed banks.
Raleigh-based First-Citizens Bank also made the list, coming in at No. 7 with 17 bids on failed banks, leading to six acquisitions.
Among the failed banks Bank of the Ozark has acquired: Bluffton, S.C.-based Woodlands Bank, which Bank of the Ozarks took over in 2010.
Bank of the Ozarks has had a loan-production office in Charlotte since 2001, but it didn't have a full-service branch in the city until March, when it opened a two-story, 11,050-square-foot branch at 4200 Park Road. It's only other North Carolina branch is in Wilmington, a market it entered when it acquired Woodlands Bank.
Bank of the Ozarks also plans to open a one-story branch in Cornelius at 19811 W. Catawba Ave. Bank of the Ozarks submitted bids for 19 of the 51 failed-bank deals in 2012.
BB&T's court fight with the Internal Revenue Service ended last month, but the winner remains unclear, BB&T disclosed Thursday in a securities filing.
The Winston-Salem-based bank, the second-largest in North Carolina by deposits, said the trial's last day was April 2 but no court decision has been handed down.
At issue is $892 million in penalties and other related payments BB&T made to the IRS in March 2010 after the agency said the bank shouldn't have taken advantage of foreign tax credits. BB&T sued the IRS in U.S. Court for Federal Claims to get the money back.
The type of tax credit at the heart of the lawsuit has also come under scrutiny in cases involving Wells Fargo and the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
After a judged ruled in February against BNY Mellon's use of the credits, BB&T, bracing for the possibility of a similar ruling, recorded an expense of $281 million in the first quarter of this year.
BB&T, though, remains confident about its odds in prevailing, saying it's raised points not considered by the U.S. Tax Court in the BNY Mellon case.
Wells Fargo, which last year reached a settlement with the federal government over claims that it violated laws that protect military members when they're on active duty, said Thursday that it is celebrating National Military Appreciation Month, which is this month.
The bank said its employees who are active-duty reservists or National Guard members will be tending the 17th-hole flag at the Wells Fargo Championship. The hole will have a U.S. flag, the bank said, adding that the employees will tend the flag Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
In golf, tending the pin, or flag, involves a person holding a flag in the hole to help the putter see where to hit the ball.
Wells Fargo, as part of the federal settlement, agreed to review its foreclosures from January 2006 to April 4, 2012, to make sure military members weren't foreclosed on in violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.
Among other things, the act prohibits foreclosures on the homes of members of the military while they are on active duty unless court approval is given to the lender.
Wells Fargo is not the only bank that's been scrutinized by the federal government over concerns about compliance with the act.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department said Bank of America will pay roughly $36.8 million to military members whose homes were illegally foreclosed upon from 2006 to 2010. In that same announcement, the department said it is conducting an ongoing review of Bank of America, Wells Fargo and three other big banks - Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial - to pinpoint violations of the act.
Bank of America as of Thursday afternoon had not issued any press releases on what it might be doing for National Military Appreciation Month, but in an email a spokeswoman said the bank's support of the military "is an ongoing commitment."
Investment firm Edward Jones plans to more than double its number of financial advising offices in Charlotte, part of the St. Louis-based company's national recruitment push.
The company now has 38 branch offices in the city, each of which employs a financial adviser and an administrator. Edward Jones aims to grow to 87 branch offices in Charlotte, which would have 174 employees.
Nationwide, the company is about a year into a push to boost its financial adviser numbers from about 12,500 to 20,000.
"We see that there's a huge need out there for what we do," said Tim Portelance, Edward Jones regional for Charlotte.
He said the company is not targeting any areas of the city in particular, but said that a number of areas across Charlotte could support an Edward Jones. New hires generally get significant leeway in determining where new offices are set up.
Edward Jones is putting an emphasis on recruiting military veterans who have recently left the service. The company offers training and compensation packages to encourage them to join.
The financial advising industry is growing rapidly as Baby Boomers reach retirement age. Over the next decade, employment is expected to increase by 32 percent, much faster than the average across all professions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Milwaukee-based wealth management and capital markets firm Baird has also eyed Charlotte for an expansion. It added two new advisers in February and told the Observer it plans to nearly double its presence in the city over the next few years, from 13 to 25 advisers.


text:
Q: App Engine cron schedule to run on weekdays I want to run a cron on App Engine every 5 minutes, but only on weekdays.
cron:
- description: run
  url: /cron/run
  schedule: */5 * * * 1-5

It gives the error:

expected alphabetic or numeric character, but found '/'

A: Since I was here to find out how to run a cron on a specific time on Weekdays,
  schedule: every mon,tue,wed,thu,fri 7:00

This worked for me, but if you want to specify both date period and the time period, you have to use Zig Mandel's solution. Hope it helps.

A: Its not possible just using cron. If what you want is saving instance hours, you can instead schedule a chron to run at midnight daily. It checks if its a weekday and if so it runs a taskqueue. The taskqueue starts another taskqueue 5 minutes ahead and also does its work. Taskqueue stops as soon as day changes.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I was just browsing for funny videos uploaded on Youtube when these videos of Maria Aragon and Anna Graceman just popped in the lists of popular videos. I decided to download the video and watch it only to be super amazed with their very awesome voices. I just felt so happy for their are kids (11 years olds) who could sing just so wonderfully.


At Zoom Sport we film football. Interviews, features, TV shows and documentaries.
Since 2012 we have produced high-end content with the best footballers in the world for the biggest broadcasters and brands. We are a team of sports journalists and filmmakers and the proud producers of Take the Ball Pass the Ball, a documentary featuring Leo Messi, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Thierry Henry and Pep Guardiola. We currently have multiple exciting projects in development.
At Zoom Sport we enjoy working with inspirational people and bringing their stories and achievements to life in film.
with excellent contacts in the world of sport.
Given three words to describe himself, Duncan chose genius, hero and humble. But most people know him as an average to poor footballer with a gluten allergy. Duncan set up ZoomSport in 2012 to escape the stationery cupboard he'd spent two seasons locked inside commentating the Premier League.
Fun Fact: Due to his beaky nose and bird-like features, Duncan is often fed pieces of stale bread by old people.
Before he signed for ZoomSport, Marc spent 10 years working at Barça TV. As one of just three people at the channel, Marc gained wide-ranging experiences from presenting shows to installing satellite dishes. During the financial crisis in Spain when hospitals couldn't afford anaesthetists, they employed Marc to put the patients to sleep by talking to them about football tactics.
Fun Fact: Marc's jeans are so baggy that a stray cat once climbed inside and slept there for an entire afternoon.
When Graham lost his hair aged 11 he experienced what doctors have since diagnosed as the "Reverse Samson" – the strength he gained that day meant he would never again feel the effects of a hangover. Graham is a vastly experienced and respected journalist and author, two of his books have won awards, while the third "Moyes: Man United's Messiah" was a flop selling just 19 copies.
Fun Fact: Graham invented the sock in 1974 but lost a long and financially crippling legal battle over the patent, leaving Graham bankrupt and determined to never wear socks again.
Víctor was raised by wolves, which explains his incredible stamina, reflexes and eye for a good image. Víctor is so obsessed with video games that he recently converted his entire house into a Call of Duty set – he was arrested for possession of two sub machine guns, an assault rifle and seven grenades. He currently lives with his mum.
Fun Fact: Víctor was four times winner of the prestigious Catalunya's Biggest Calves award from 2014-2017. This year he was disqualified after being caught inflating his calves with a bicycle pump.
@taketheballfilm will be released in the USA on May 14th!!
Sorry it's taken a while, thanks for your patience, hope you enjoy!
Our DOP @victormgros smashes his PB at the Barcelona marathon.


text:
Guilds & Factions
Independent Guilds
Meliora Vitae
A new place to call home
Kiari Cold
Lineage : Dragon's Spirit
Guild : Maliora Vitae
First Magic: 2nd Gen White Dragon Slayer
by Kiari Cold 9th February 2021, 3:28 pm
Maliora Vitae.... A possible new home for Kiari. years have passed since his original guild had disbanded with no explanation as to why from Ardere, Kiari had to find a new guild. A dragon slayer with no guild roaming the world was not what he had in mind. He had stumbled around the pubs where wizards gather only to hear that there was a guild that worked independent of the legal guilds that strived to protect the magical creatures of the world and to do this by any means. This peeked his interest enough to track down where the guild hall was. "hmm seems like they work like Infinity Hydra." He mutters leaving the bar to head towards the new guild.
~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~
Months later we find Kiari looking around outside as this guilds ship was docked. He is thinking about his journey and the time he was in Infinity Hydra only to smile that he can see this guild as his new family. He does wonder about his old guild mates but is happy that he might have found a new place to call home. " Ardere where ever you are you would be proud of me... thank you" he mutters just a bit almost like a whisper as he is looking around at the guilds ship hoping that they will accept him. Time has done him some justice though he still hates when there is transportation. Motion sickness the bane of all dragon slayers.
Since the day that he his guild had disbanded he has since looked and wanted to see what could happen. From what he has gathered this guild can help him help creatures like the dragons who he holds dear to his heart. This guild has been known to hunt down monsters and protect the natural world that they all live in. Just thinking about this has brought a smile to Kiaris face while he is looking at this wonderful ship that this guild had to offer. This smile wouldn't last long as the mere thought of the ship moving on the sea gave him nausea. " Seems like everyone here is almost always busy". Looking around at all of the people that are talking and walking around. " I wonder were the guild hall itself is. A guild like this should have it somewhat near by".
Kiari Cold|White Dragon Slayer
God Slayer Lacrima n694
Ice Dragon Slayer Lacrima post n96
Dragon slayer Lacrima n 706
"Okay, this is when I go back to my gay fish babies." -Cookie
Nadarr
Lineage : Comet
Guild : Fairy Tail
First Magic: Magical Alchemy
Re: A new place to call home
by Nadarr 10th February 2021, 7:04 am
Octavia would be moving around the ship with a slight skip to her step happily, she was enjoying Her brand new home oh, so far everyone here was good people and has plenty of space for her to explore around the ship. She's been here for quite some time now and she still hasn't found everything. Like every day's a mini-adventure for her and was wonderful, though it seemed everyone was a bit busy at times, not a lot of time for fun. This is why I want you saying before I'm the team to get a good reception however she didn't want that stop her. as she would Round the Corner she would see someone couldn't recognize, granted they were a lot of people on this ship that she had my ear but this one was a little different cared more of a standard with him so she smiled and walked over to him.
"Heeeelllooo~" Octaiva Said in a bit of a High singing tone not high enough to be ear piercing or anything like that but kind up there pretty same Melody as she gave a small hand wave and stopped in front of the man okay I'm up and down for a brief moment before our meeting back in his eyes. "Are you new around here, I haven't met everyone so maybe you are and maybe you aren't but I definitely don't remember seeing you around here so either way you're new to me...Nice to meet you, my name is Octavia whats yous?"She said taking it upon herself or the ship had anything or not to be a welcoming committee, after all what kind of bird would she be if she didn't welcome a new face when she saw one. Either way she was highly fascinated with what this new change in Maine now, what Adventures he may have had, and what stories will be told with him the idea of this was just getting her all no more excited to meet this individual so what that should wait for his answer. though as always she hope she didn't come on too strong to this stranger, whoever he may be she had a bad habit of doing that after all.
WC 373
SlayerMathis
Lineage : Bladesmaster
Guild : Meliora Vitae
Cosmic Coins : 150
Experience : 602,570
First Magic: Blade Summoning
by SlayerMathis 10th February 2021, 11:10 am
STATS & SUMMARY
HP 1190/1190
MP 500/500
Speed 204m/s
Strength 155.5
(Melee Damage)
(Spell Power Multiplier)
ITEMS ON HAND
SPELLS USED
COMBAT SUMMARY
Damage Taken: N/A
Healing: N/A
MP Used: N/A
Buffs: N/A
Other Notes: N/A
The Endeavor had briefly touched down for an acquisition of supplies, Mathis being one of the people to help oversee the loading and boarding. He was, of course, not the one fully in charge of the restocking, he was not high enough in the hierarchy of the guild to properly be fit for that, but he was a steady hand in making sure things went smoothly. The years he had spent within this world would assure that, the vast stores of experience providing him with the ability to ensure that this would go without a hitch. These supply runs were not commonplace, the ship itself often self sufficient enough to not provide these, and in the case of many of the supply runs went through the smaller ships that dotted the lines of the Endeavor, as if loading trucks to a warehouse. Yet, for one of the first times since he arrived in Meliora Vitae, the Endeavor found enough time to properly settle down, the massive frame of the airship parked beside a small, lonely town, hours of travel away from the nearest town of note in Rose Garden, the fishing village situated at the northernmost peak of the peninsula of Fiore, one of the most northern parts of the entire country as a whole.
Soon enough, the final sets of supplies entered the ship, the overseeing member of guild administration taking the last of the check to ensure everything was truly set, Mathis taking his leave from his work to investigate the village a little bit. He had no need for any supplies, himself, yet he still wished to ensure with the townsfolk that lived here had adequate compensation for allowing the Endeavor to park near their town. Soon enough, he noticed a person that was not too familiar to him, only having seen the girl in passing on the ship, talking to a blond boy who seemed enamored with the Endeavor. The elder Blade took his steps towards the two of them, approaching as he was still masked.
"I take it you are not from this village?" Mathis asked the boy, his voice calm and cool. "At the very least, none of the other townsfolk seem to recognize you." He turned towards the Endeavor. "This is the S.S. Endeavor, home of the guild Meliora Vitae. I see you are at least somewhat acquainted with one of our fellow members." He bowed, facing towards the girl now. "I apologize, I do not know you too well. If I recall, your name is Octavia, correct? I have done my best to acknowledge the people who are within the guild's roster, yet I am not perfect with my recollection." He then took a few steps back, making sure he could easily address both of the people here. "I am Mathis Lora, a member of Meliora Vitae. I am not the most well versed in terms of knowledge on this guild, yet I will be happy to assist in what ways I can, if you have any questions."
WC: 0507 | TWC: 0507
Template Made by Pokomon
Edited by SlayerMathis
Mathis Lora | Blademaster Lineage | Monado | Magic | Poppi
Golden Lac until 7 Nov 2020
by Kiari Cold 10th February 2021, 2:09 pm
Just staring at this ship was still so amazing. He knew that Guilds could have air ships but this one really has held his attention. With all of the amazement that was happening he did not even pick up the scent of one of the members of this guild walking up to him. The first thing he heard was some odd melody that kinda sounded like they were singing hello. He looked at the woman that was now looking him up and down before looking at his eyes again. "Hello, I am hoping to be new here." He would look this woman up and down real quick and take a deep breath to remember her scent. Her name was Octavia. "It is nice to meet you Octavia. I'm Kiari...." he says with a sweet as can be tone. Words smooth like water but with a bit of a hidden sting behind it. "I am wanting to join this guild and finally tracked it down so that I can join." The look on his face should enthusiasm while talking to her.
It was not to much longer that another person walked up who seemed to know Octavia. This new one had a vary weird scent something that Kiari couldn't place he finger on. This new person seemed to have a keen eye when he asked if kiari was from the village behind him. "You have a good eye, I am not of this village but I have heard rumors that has lead me to your guild."
Once Mathis has said that the entire ship was their guild hall he was even more impressed then anything. It looked to Kiari that this guild was about as big as the Castle of Ardere. " That is interesting. I came here looking for a new place to call home since my last guild was disbanded. My old master did not provide a reason he just told us that Infinity Hydra was over. I came here looking for a new place to call home. I just met Octavia but you all seem friendly enough." he would say this with a grin that would reveal the fangs he normally keapt hidden. " I am just not sure what the guild requires or even if this guild will accept a Dragon Slayer within the ranks." He normally does not drop that he is a dragon slayer but hell why not.
He would look at this huge ship and see that it is a means of transportation and it did make his stomach turn as the motion sickness has indeed started to rear its ugly head. Kiari tried to make sure that his face and body did not reflect that just thinking about this moving around in the air was making him sick. He was not even sure how this guild will feel about him being a dragon slayer. Kiari knows that most guilds do not mind but this one is not like most guilds. This one protects nature and the magical creatures of the entire world so he really was not sure how they would take the news of him using Dragon Interception Magic.
by Nadarr 10th February 2021, 3:23 pm
Octavia would smile who is open so many smooth-talking gentleman around here, as she nodded acknowledging him nodding. "You hear of me...thats wonderful that means my names getting out there, as I said my name is indeed.." she pause for a second in gently wave her arm in an arc above her head making her name up here for a slight second as if it was a neon light curving around for arc. "Octavia!" She said as the inside faded "please to meet you however" she didn't spend on her heel walking towards Kiari again as she had finished with him and was sure this new man named Mathis would join the conversation. Her eyes lit up hearing the name Infiny Hydra, a dead guild was like a set of Ruins, wait full of stories and she had a member infront of her. Book were a great source but someone with first hand experience...today was her day for sure.
She was about to speak, you're about to say something. He was also a dragon slayer on top of that, while they definitely just sit around. It never personally met many Dragon Slayers in the Third Kind was in the Enigma to her. What's going in her even more curious though see how fast the urge to bombard the man with question. Or at least so she thought she did. "Wait Infinty hydra, tell me about them, with detail, also can you turn into a dragon, or have you a heroic story or some sorta tale of slaying one, what do you like to do for fun?" She battled off question before she can catch up to think about what you was doing the last will not even necessary give me the topic, shotgunning off questions right now hopefully he'll answer whether he did or not didn't matter to her to find out in time. So many stories already being written in her head and she hadn't even known this man for more than a day...she hoped they didn't mistake her enthusiasm for Insanity but either way she was happy to be here and had so many questions for Mathis as soon as she finished with Kiari.
WC: 366
by SlayerMathis 15th February 2021, 3:12 pm
Mathis gave a pleasant smile at the two of them continuing on their enthusiastic ways. "I see. I suppose rumors that an airship of such a large size landing here would certainly flow easily. As for your matter of being a dragon slayer, there should be minimal issue with that. Our guild already features a few dragon slayers. Of course, I am not all too familiar with the means of that... magic, yet I do believe you will find ample support from those who do know."
He paused a moment for Octavia to ask questions, waiting until she took a moment to breathe. "As for our guild's purpose, sir, we are devoted to the preservation of nature in every respect, primarily maintaining the balance in the world. We have many methods for this goal, and I would request that you inquire to our Guild Master or his deputies in regards to your preferred action towards this goal." He sighed, seeing that Octavia wished to ask more questions. "I will admit, however, I have my own curiosities about your past, sir. Of course, if you do not wish to indulge details, I shall not press you more. All of us have secrets we would like to keep." He smiled and nodded, clasping his hands behind his back. "If I may be so bold, I do wish to ask some preliminary questions myself, but I believe Octavia-san would be most delighted for you to answer her questions."
Lineage : Warrior's Heart
Guild : Meliora Vitae [GM]
First Magic: Leviathan
by Dagda 16th February 2021, 8:40 pm
"Forty-two." Dagda ran a hand through his black hair as he recounted the last box of the shipment. There had been a slight difference in the numbers on the clipboard in his hand and what had been counted by the Meliora Vitae members helping load the supplies. However, after a bit of stress and several times of recounting, then losing count, he finally figured out where he'd gone wrong.
A sigh of relief left the Captain as he leaned back against a crate. Now that everything was properly accounted for, it was time for the S.S. Endeavor to return to the air once more. He would do a systems check of the ship, but not leave until all the members were on board. Several had ventured into the small village near the ship once the shipment had been loaded to do their own exploring and shopping.
Dagda pulled his iLac from his pocket, taking a moment to navigate to the right screen before holding it up to his mouth to record a short voice message. Earlier, he'd seen Mathis head off the ship towards the village. While the titan finished up ship preparations, he wished to task the other man with gathering up the guild members so they could take off.
"Mathis, if you're in the village, could you round everyone up? Shipment's all counted for, we're ready to hit the sky again in a few." Lowering the device, he would send the message off before heading up towards the upper deck.
Post WC: 252 ♜ Thread WC: XXX/XXX ♜ Tagged: X ♜ Music: The Spook
♜ Dagda's Directory ♜
by Kiari Cold 16th February 2021, 10:34 pm
Wow Octavia could really could shoot off the questions. Kiari was taken back by the rapid fire questions that was being asked about Infinity Hydra. Kiari chose to ignore all of the questions for now by saying " Octavia maybe with time I will answer all of your questions about my old guild and the Flame God Ardere and about my Dragon Slayer magic, but for now, can we put those questions onto the back burner?" With that statement he would turn his attention to Mathis.
Kiari listened to his words as he did like to hear that there was other dragon slayers within this guild. This got him to really want to join this guild. Kiari wanted to learn a lot more from them and wanted to grow while with them. Mathis had continued to say that he had some questions to ask himself. " As for now lets leave my past on the back burner, however, ask your preliminary questions Mathis."Kiari looked at Mathis with a slight grin on his face.
Talking to the guild master is definitely on my to do list he thought while he took a deep breath in and began to eat some of the light reflecting off of the guilds ship. He was hungry and could eat the light from anything. He did not want to give to much away but he needed to be able to trust that wanting to join this guild was the best option since he wanted to help everyone and everything.
" I will answer any question you have Mathis. Fire awayHis voice was smooth cool and filled with hunger. He would take a bite of the light right in front of them as it keeps reflecting from their guild ship. With time he would show them all his actual power...
» A Place to Call My Own
» A Place to Call "Home"
» A New Place to Call Home
» A Place for the Stormcaller to Call Home
» Two runaways, a place to call home? [open to FT members only]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


SCIENTISTS concerned with the birth of the universe have a new tool with which to explore that inscrutable event. It's the Tevatron particle accelerator now being brought up to full power here at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).
Besides giving new insight into subatomic particles, this machine will also reproduce conditions that have not occurred naturally since the first trillionth of a second in the birth of the cosmos.
''Every collision (between particles) we make here didn't exist, doesn't exist, anywhere in the universe until you go back to shortly after the Big Bang, '' says Fermilab director Leon Lederman. This Bang is the outburst of energy from which the universe emerged 10 to 20 billion years ago, according to popular theories.
For that early epoch, astrophysicists have no adequate theories to guide them. ''We have the history from, say, a hundredth of a second until today well under control,'' says Fermilab astrophysicist Michael Turner.
To explore what happened earlier, cosmologists must wait for discoveries by particle physicists to guide their calculations. As the Tevatron comes up to full power, it will take cosmologists back far earlier than that hundredth-of-a-second benchmark.
The energies involved are measured in terms of electron volts (eV). A proton or electron gains an energy of one eV when it is accelerated by a voltage difference of one volt. Using this unit, it is easy to see that even the energies of protons that fuse together at 15 million degrees to power the sun are puny, compared with those produced by the accelerator.
The solar protons have energies of around a thousand electron volts. Fermilab's new accelerator already has beams of 800 billion eV (800 GeV) protons. Within a year, it should reach its design level of 1,000 GeV or 1 TeV (T for tera, the metric term for a trillion). Hence the accelerator's name - Tevatron. Within two years, it should provide head-on particle collisions of 2 TeV.
Such Tevatron energies correspond to temperatures of many thousands of trillions of degrees. What may be more meaningful, they represent conditions that prevailed in the universe a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Thus Tevatron experiments should provide cosmologists with insight into how matter behaved at that early moment. Certainly, Turner notes, it was a much different situation than prevails anywhere in nature today. Yet, there is debris left over from that epoch, and astronomers can study it. This, in turn, helps elucidate the physicists' theories.
''If we're really clever,'' Turner explains, ''we can use the debris . . . to try to figure out the kind of things that were happening very early on.'' Then these findings can be compared with what accelerator experiments reveal about matter and energy under the primordial conditions. A better understanding both of the early universe and of particle physics may evolve. Debris consists of such relics as a universal bath of microwave (radio) radiation at a temperature of 3 Kelvin (3 degrees above absolute zero), or a form of helium called helium 4 , which accounts for 25 percent of the mass of today's universe.
Conversely, to understand how the universe began to evolve, cosmologists need to know such basic facts as how many quarks there are and exactly how these interact. Quarks are the units out of which protons and related particles are made. Such knowledge can only come from high-energy-accelerator experiments.


text:
This unique Library is housed in a spacious and well planned building. The total plinth area being 3600 sq.ft… It is furnished with up to date furniture and modern lighting arrangements. The Library has, at present, about 3497 books. As many as 16 journals periodicals on different disciplines of medicine are subscribed. The Library is kept open on all working days from 09-00 A.M. to 7-00 P.M. and we follow the close access system, thus providing an incentive to students to look into the books. The working of the library is being supervised by a separate Committee. The library also provides facilities in Audio-Video learning system. Bound volumes are also available for student reference.
Fitting with the new millennium, facilities of E-Mail Internet, retrieval of journals and text books and conferencing with other research and academic institutions world-wide have been added with 15 computer sets and capacity of 15 is targeted in near future. Facilities offered by 'Digital Library' Communication through Email, Chat, Voice Message, Voice mail Browsing of World Web Online Journals, which the College has subscribed, reference Books online, Journal Search, Practice Guidelines, Patients Education, Drug information etc.
Library remains closed on every Sundays & Other Holidays
Library at a Glance
Total Number of Books 6128
Total Number of Journals 16
Total Number of E- Journals 22
Total Number of Bound Volumes 152
Total Number of Audio Visuals/CD's 160
Total Built-up Area 3600 Sq. Ft
Total Seating Capacity 139


text:
Internet and Society Seminar: Robert Stein on 'The Evolution of Reading and Writing in the Networked Era'
Filming venue:
Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS United Kingdom
For the past several hundred years intellectual discourse has been shaped by the rhythms and hierarchies inherent in the nature of print. As discourse shifts from page to screen, and more significantly to a networked environment, the old definitions and relations are undergoing substantial changes.
The shift in our world view from individual to network holds the promise of a radical reconfiguraton in culture. Notions of authority are being challenged. The roles of author and reader are morphing and blurring. Publishing, methods of distribution, peer review and copyright – every crucial aspect of the way we move ideas around – is up for grabs. The new digital technologies afford vastly different outcomes ranging from oppressive to liberating. How we make this shift has critical long term implications for human society.
Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book
Robert Stein is the director of the and a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics in the department of Social Psychology. The institute has two principal activities; one is building high-end tools for making rich media electronic documents and the other is exploring and hopefully influencing the evolution of new forms of intellectual expression and discourse. Previously Stein was the founder of The Voyager Company where over a 13-year period he led the development of over 300 titles in The Criterion Collection, a series of definitive films, and more than 75 CD ROM titles including the CD Companion to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Who Built America, and Stephen Jay Gould On Evolution.


Skibbereen & West Carbery Golf Club is a members' club, located on the Wild Atlantic Way approximately 3 Kms from the town of Skibbereen on the Baltimore Road. Established in 1935 as a 9 hole course it was extended to 18 holes in 1993. PGA professional Sarah Claridge has been associated with the club since 2017 and provides an excellent coaching programme for members and visitors. Membership continues to grow across all categories and allied with many course and clubhouse improvements the club is facing the future with great confidence.
Balance daily/weekly cash and take responsibility for bank lodgements.
Handle members' queries and requests as they arise.
Provide front of house service to visitors and societies when they arrive.
Oversee the provision of bar and catering services at the club within agreed budget.
Report to a designated club officer on a weekly basis.
Strong IT skills particularly on Microsoft office and a familiarity with Sage accounting software would be desirable.
Knowledge of golf software systems (BRS, Club V1) would be an advantage but not essential.
Have an innovative and positive approach to continuing the development of the club.
Remuneration package will reflect the qualifications and experience of the successful candidate.


text:
Home > Newsroom > Top Stories > Russian military successfully test modernized anti-ballistic missile
Russian military successfully test modernized anti-ballistic missile
MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax) - A modernized anti-ballistic missile has been successfully tested at the Sary-Shagan range in Kazakhstan, the Russian Defense Ministry's newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda said on Monday.
"A crew of the Aerospace Forces' air and missile defense forces has successfully performed another test-launch of a modernized missile of the Russian missile defense system at the Sary-Shagan range in Kazakhstan," the newspaper said.
The modernized anti-ballistic missile accomplished the mission and hit the target with the required, deputy commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces' (special) air and missile defense formation Col. Andrei Prikhodko said.
Being a key element of defense, the missile defense system is operated by the Russian Aerospace Forces' air and missile defense formation as means protecting Moscow from aerospace attacks. It also used as a missile attack warning and space surveillance network.
"We have successfully performed another test-launch of a modernized anti-ballistic missile; the trial program has come to a close. The missile's performance characteristics, such as the range, precision, and life cycle, significantly exceed properties of missiles currently in use," the newspaper quoted Prikhodko as saying.
This anti-ballistic missile, just like any other missile defense component undergoing modernization, will ensure reliable protection of the designated sector, he said.
"This includes solo and massive missile strikes, among them those involving next-generation intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying various types of penetration aids," Prikhodko said.


Jennifer received her M.F.A. from Ohio State University and her B.F.A. from the University of Utah. She teaches modern dance technique, composition, dance history, teaching methods, and The Creative Process. She teaches graduate seminars in teaching methods, and composition. She spent seven years in NYC touring and dancing with various choreographers including David Dorfman and Chris Burnside, and was also the Artistic Director of her own company. Salk was an assistant professor in the dance department at the University of South Florida prior to coming here.
Salk has taught master classes and choreographed for companies and schools around the country, as well as in Istanbul, Turkey and Asuncion, Paraguay. She is on faculty at the Staibdance Summer Dance Intensive in Sorrento, Italy. She has performed with Mark Haim in Paris at the ArtDanThe Festival and at ADF, and will perform with him at the Joyce Theater in NYC. She has presented at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science and National Dance Education Organization conferences. She has taught at American Dance Festival and the Florida Dance Festival. Her DVD, "Experiential Anatomy in Dance Technique: Eight Skeletal Explorations" was published by Human Kinetics in 2010. Salk is the recipient of the Fulbright Specialist Roster Grant, and the Distinguished Teaching Award at UW in 2006. She was the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Fellow from 2010 – 2013. She was the Floyd and Delores Endowed Chair in the Arts from 2015 - 2018. She is currently a Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professor.