BusinessTN

Chattanooga/East
Knoxville/East
Memphis/West
Nashville/Middle

Chattanooga/East
Knoxville/East
Memphis/West
Nashville/Middle

Chattanooga

• Chattanooga
  
  • Startup aircraft maintenance and repair company Air Corporate Services has proposed building a $15 million hangar on 16 leased acres at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport's Lovell Field.
  • According to the Census Bureau, Chattanooga is growing more rapidly than any other major Tennessee city. With just 14,000 fewer residents than Knoxville, it may eventually overtake K-town as the third-largest city in the state.
  • Mandated to improve its air quality, Chattanooga announced it has met federal clean-air standards for three consecutive years. Failure to do so might have compromised highway funds and industrial permits.
  • The city-owned Electric Power Board received offers from 11 financial institutions, more than expected, interested in underwriting bonds for EPB's planned residential fiber-optic service for video, telephone and broadband Internet.
  • FedEx Ground will receive some $5.2 million in tax incentives, including a $4 million Renewal Community deduction, for the $15.5 million ground distribution center it's building at the former Wheland Foundry landfill.
  • The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce announced the formation of its first cultural council, the Korean American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Chattanooga.
  • Publix Super Markets was set to enter the Chattanooga market in December. The nation's largest and fastest-growing employee-owned supermarket chain plans to open three area stores by fall 2008.
  • Citing prohibitive renovation costs, Unum Group announced it would demolish the old Electric Power Board building, which it procured in a land swap in 2003. EPB moved to the new, $30 million quarters in 2006.
  • For the second year in a row, UT-Chattanooga's MBA program was named by The Princeton Review as one of the country's top business schools with opportunities for women.
• Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.
  
  • Nice Cars, Chattanooga's largest used-car dealership, temporarily suspended operations after parent company Manchester Inc. sued the dealership for overstating its value when Manchester bought it last year for some $72 million.
• Spring City, Tenn.
  
  • TVA will pay nuclear contractor Bechtel Power Corp. up to $1 billion for completion of its Unit 2 reactor at Watts Bar. Construction of the unit was suspended in 1988.

Chattanooga/East
Knoxville/East
Memphis/West
Nashville/Middle

Knoxville

• Bristol
  • King Pharmaceuticals showed an 11% increase in total revenues to $545 million during the third quarter of 2007, compared to $492 million, third quarter 2006. This positive news was somewhat dampened by a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling against the continuing validity of the Altace patent. King is expected to continue building up its neuroscience and hospital and acute care division, which includes a 20% reduction in King's total workforce.
• Greeneville
  • Green Bancshares increased its income more than 64% to $8.91 million in the third quarter 2007 compared to $5.51 million for the same quarter in 2006—the first report fully reflecting the company's Civitas BankGroup acquisition.
• Kingsport
  • Eastman Chemical Co. has proposed to install additional air pollution control equipment on five industrial boilers at its Kingsport operations, a $200 million capital project that is part of the $1.3 billion "Project Reinvest" plan. The company expects a 60% reduction in emission of sulfur dioxide once the project, slated to begin in 2009, is completed.
  • Wellmont Health System is seeking state approval to build Wellmont Emergency Care and Diagnostic Center at Boones Creek, a $41 million investment in Washington County. Wellmont expects to break ground for the 30,000-square-foot freestanding facility in early 2008. The plans have been challenged by health care system rival, Johnson City-based Mountain Health States Alliance, which claims in a press release that the center is "simply an attempt to divert patients in Washington County to facilities in Sullivan County." MSHA vice president Ed Herbert went on to say, "Even though [Boones Creek emergency department] will be a few miles from the Level 1 Trauma Center at Johnson City Medical Center, this project clearly is an attempt by Wellmont to transfer patients to their Kingsport or Bristol hospitals."
• Knoxville
  • Startup technology firms Aldis and Ampulse, spun from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, received part of an $8 million commitment from New Jersey-based Battelle Ventures through its Innovation Valley Partners fund. Aldis, a traffic management/tech company focused on energy efficiency, was given $1.9 million in Series A funding. Ampulse, a firm that will commercialize ORNL's flexible thin-film photovoltaic technologies, received $1 million in pre-seed money.
  • Regal Entertainment Group enjoyed total revenues of $752.9 million for the third quarter of 2007 compared to $675.7 million in the same quarter in 2006. The boost came despite the recent sale of advertising unit, National CineMedia, thanks to a string of blockbusters released last year.
• Vonore
  • After less than two years in operation, Cobalt Yachts is merging the operations of its plant in Vonore into its Kansas-based headquarters. The closure means laying off 110 Tennessee employees by March, though many were offered the opportunity to relocate.

Chattanooga/East
Knoxville/East
Memphis/West
Nashville/Middle

Memphis

• Collierville
  • Exact Commerce USA passed on Nashville and the alluring counties in North Mississippi to locate its new 100,000-square-foot national headquarters in Collierville. The furniture/lawn and garden tool manufacturer will also operate its sibling company, Belle Meade Signature, at the new plant on the 12-acre Progress Road Business Park.
• Memphis
  • AmeriGroup Corp. completed acquisition of Memphis Managed Care Corp., including the TLC Family Health Care Plan. Operations will continue under the same respective brands, serving a combined 167,000 West Tennessee residents enrolled in the TennCare program. In a news release, an AmeriGroup executive said that the company does not expect the transaction to materially impact 2007 earnings.
  • Back Yard Burgers finally concluded a merger with BBAC LLC and BBAC Merger Sub, an investment partnership managed by Cherokee Advisors of Atlanta in November. That same week, the company announced a reshuffling of executive leadership and a relocation of its headquarters to Nashville before spring.
  • Pennsylvania's publicly traded Charming Shoppes (Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines) announced plans to consolidate its Memphis-based Catherines Plus Sizes subsidiary into its headquarters by the end of March 2008. The company reported that the $8 million savings plan will affect more than 100 employees, who were offered a choice between severance or relocation packages. The company closed its distribution facility here in 2003.
  • Detroit's Stuart Frankel Development has begun developing a new $20 million distribution park near the nearly full Memphis Depot Business Park. The Dunn Field Business Park 575,000-square-foot facility will comprise four structures on about 40 acres.
  • Northwest Airlines seemed to have turned a corner when in November the company reported its best performance in 10 years—third best in company history—showing a $405 million pre-tax profit for its third quarter. Northwest, which has gone through a series of union negotiations in recent years, said the banner quarter is consistent with its five-year business plan.
  • St. Jude Children's Research Hospital announced what could be the best break in the looming billion-dollar obesity problem in years when researchers announced success in a weight-control program that reduced obesity in children for two years—the longest stretch for such a program. Begun at the University of Memphis, the education/whole-life program demonstrated a significant reduction in the prevalence of obesity among a group of eight-to-10-year-old African-American girls.
  • New York investors interested in the Memphis real estate market purchased the $31.3 million real estate portfolio from developer Trip Trezevant. The portfolio consists of predominantly retail real estate assets.

Chattanooga/East
Knoxville/East
Memphis/West
Nashville/Middle

Nashville

• Brentwood
• Maryland-based New Enterprise Associates completed a $50 million growth equity investment in Simplex Diabetic Supply, the nation's 12th largest supplier of Medicare diabetes supplies.