By: Tim Rausch on May 17, 2012 - 8:21pm - Add new comment
For the first time in its 15 year history, First Bank of Georgia’s parent company issued a dividend.
Georgia-Carolina Bancshares paid out 4 cents per share on Tuesday.
Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder. Up until now, profits have been re-invested in the company.
Now, why do you pay out a dividend when you’ve never done it before?
By: Tim Rausch on May 10, 2012 - 8:23pm - Add new comment
A Michigan company’s acquisition of Solo Cup is now complete, months before anticipated.
The buyout by Dart Container is valued at about $1 billion. The companies thought it would be summertime before the merger got through the red tape, but it happened this month.
The new owners of the Solo Cup plant in Augusta say that they don’t have any changes in mind this year. Integration of the companies is going to be done in a “thoughtful and analytical manner.”
By: Tim Rausch on May 4, 2012 - 9:35am - Add new comment
Augusta State University reports slight improvement in the tourism industry for Augusta in the months before the Masters Tournament.
The business college’s tourism index was 0.8 percent higher for the first quarter.
ASU says hotel occupancy was 54 percent. Employment was close to 21,000. And revenue per rooms was near $50.
The numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Smith Travel Research.
By: Tim Rausch on April 27, 2012 - 9:19am - Add new comment
A snapshot of the economy in 2010 came out this week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the county-level personal income data.
The average wage per job was an eye-opening number. You would think that by virtue of the large collection of big homes in Columbia County, it would rule the wage department in our six-county metro area. Nope.
Aiken County had an average wage per job of $46,561. (It could be the effect of the Obama administration stimulus funding for Savannah River Site, because the number of jobs shot up from 2009 to 2010.)
By: Tim Rausch on April 21, 2012 - 9:35am - Add new comment
If you can tear yourself away from American Idol Thursday, CNBC is finally airing the documentary on Costco that was partially taped in Augusta.
CNBC sent a “rough cut copy” of the special for the media to view. So I did.
Augusta takes a prominent position in the documentary. It is the first thing out of the chute, filmed when the new store opened on Alexander Drive in October.
By: Tim Rausch on April 12, 2012 - 1:08pm - Add new comment
SunTrust Bank’s market executive for Augusta has some different duties.
Tom Coghill has more of a community relationship role as statewide reorganization moved the supervision of two of the bank’s lending teams to Savannah and Macon.
SunTrust cut the number of team leaders in Georgia in half. In the consolidation, two of the three chose to retire. Coghill chose a new role in Augusta.
By: Tim Rausch on March 29, 2012 - 1:46pm - Add new comment
Not an April Fool’s gag: Economists are seeing some improvement in Augusta’s economy.
The index from Augusta State University has been up for four months straight. And it has been going up in an increasing rate.
And it has been going up in an increasing rate.
ASU finance professor Simon Medcalfe, in charge of the index, said it was rising at a 2 percent annual level in October, and now it is around 4 percent.
Keep it real quote: “It was rising at double digit figures back in 2010.”
By: Tim Rausch on March 21, 2012 - 10:20am - Add new comment
Augusta’s commercial retail giant got larger with the acquisition of another shopping mall.
Hull Storey Gibson Companies bought the mall in Danville, Va., from General Growth Properties and announced it on Tuesday night.
Piedmont Mall is Hull Storey Gibson’s 18th mall. The 731,500 square foot mall is anchored by Sears and Belk.
Apparently, the mall needs some improvement. Managing partner Jim Hull said the renovations will include an upgrade of the interior and exterior lighting, entrances, signage, painting and flooring.
By: Tim Rausch on March 8, 2012 - 3:27pm - Add new comment
It took 21 1/2 months for the Dow Jones to go from 11,000 to 12,000.
It took 13 more months to hit the 13,000 level, which happened on Feb. 28.
The stocks of local interest that did the best in the run to 13,000 were Bridgestone, Home Depot and CVS – all better than 10 point gains – with honorable mention to Kimberly-Clark and Southern Co.
By: Tim Rausch on February 23, 2012 - 11:19am - Add new comment
The Augusta area is trending better on home sales, but the time it takes to get a sale is still long.
Before the housing crisis and the recession, it took roughly three month to sell a house. That went up to four to five months during the recession.
But the average days on market right now is longer than six months, according to data from the Greater Augusta Association of Realtors.
There are 1,300 homes for sale right now that have been on the market for more than a year. The number of homes available that have been listed for under a year is 4,400.
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