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News Briefs
Charleston-based company closes its Pittsburgh plant
AstenJohnson Inc., a Charleston-based textile manufacturer, will permanently close its plant outside Pittsburgh in September, putting 62 employees out of work.
The company, which had originally planned to close the plant July 1, told the Pennsylvania Bureau of Workforce Investment that it has given workers notice of the revised plant closure. Layoffs began in April and will continue through September.
The private company did not return calls for comment regarding the plant closure and whether it foreshadows a similar action at its Charleston facility. AstenJohnson employs about 80 at its Corporate Road facility in Charleston. Companywide, AstenJohnson employs 1,255.
AstenJohnson, which was founded in 1931, designs, manufactures and markets paper machine clothing for all sections of the paper machine. Paper machine clothing is a highly engineered fabric installed on machines to carry paper stock through each stage of the papermaking process.
Walls rise at new Benefitfocus headquarters
Construction of Benefitfocus.com Inc.’s new $20 million headquarters on Daniel Island reached a milestone recently when the first exterior walls of the 145,000-square-foot facility were erected.
The 250-employee company, which provides employee benefits software and services, celebrated the event with a picnic at the 14-acre site.
The new facility is scheduled for occupancy Oct. 1. Benefitfocus officials say construction is on schedule.
American LaFrance finalizing decision on future plant site
American LaFrance, the Ladson-based emergency vehicle maker, is in the final stages of selecting a site somewhere in the Charleston region for its new manufacturing plant. A decision could be announced within the next two to three weeks, sources with the company said.
The company must move out of its current location in the Palmetto Commerce Park by mid-2007 to make way for production of DaimlerChrysler’s Sprinter van.
The automaking giant sold American LaFrance to Patriarch Partners LLC, a New York investment firm, in December, but the plant wasn’t part of the deal.
In announcing the purchase of the company, Patriarch CEO Lynn Tilton vowed to build a new plant in the region, “perhaps even in this same commerce park.
“The bottom line,” she said at the time, “is we’re staying in the area.”
Tilton now plans to build a 400,000-square-foot facility for American LaFrance’s 500 employees, consolidating the entire operation here in South
Carolina.
Charleston County receives top bond rating
Standard and Poor’s Rating Service has raised Charleston County’s bond rating from AA+ to AAA, county officials announced.
Greenville is the only other county in South Carolina to hold the AAA rating, Standard and Poor’s highest.
The new rating will save Charleston County taxpayers $500,000 in interest payments as the county prepares to issue $65 million in general obligation funds—$29 million to finance road construction projects and $36 million to acquire land for parks.
Proceeds from the half-cent sales tax, which will raise $1.3 billion over the next 25 years, will fund the county’s road repair projects and green space acquisitions, in addition to mass transit and drainage products.
Charleston County received a higher bond rating because of its growing and diversified economy, stable and diverse tax base, conservative fiscal management and low debt, according to Standard and Poor’s credit analyst, Eden Perry.
School launches externship
The Charleston School of Law has announced its endorsement of a “memorandum of understanding” with the South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense that creates a new externship program to allow interested students to work in public defender offices in rural parts of the state.
The school is one of the few in the country that seeks to instill a sense of public service in students by requiring at least 30 hours of law-related public service work before graduation.
Tanger increases dividend for 13th consecutive year
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc.’s board of directors has approved a 5.43% increase in the annual dividend on its common shares from $1.29 per share to $1.36 per share. The board also declared a quarterly dividend of 34 cents per share for the first quarter ended March 31, 2006.
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc., headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., owns and operates a portfolio of 33 centers in 22 states nationwide, totaling about 8.7 million square feet of gross leasable area.
The new 352,000-square-foot Tanger Outlet Center in North Charleston, Tanger’s fifth upscale shopping center in South Carolina, will feature more than 90 brand name and designer outlet stores. It is scheduled to open this fall.
The company’s two outlet centers in Hilton Head and two outlet centers in Myrtle Beach have been tourist attractions for the state, attracting more than 13 million shoppers annually and generating more than $16 million per year in property and sales tax revenue.
Pozner steps down from MUSC research foundation
Bob Pozner has resigned as director of the Medical University of South Carolina’s Foundation for Research Development, a nonprofit organization that helps commercialize products from lab research and create startup medical technology companies.
Pozner announced his resignation April 12.
“I left the MUSC Foundation for Research Development because things were not working out as I had hoped they would,” Pozner said.
He would not elaborate.
The foundation declined to comment on Pozner’s resignation.
Pozner assumed the foundation’s technology transfer directorship in July 2005. He took over from Ken Roozen, who left to become executive director of Charleston Angel Partners, a group that invests in startup companies.
Before joining the foundation, Pozner was senior associate director of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Office of Technology Development.
After Pozner sells his house in Charleston, he plans to move back to the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
“In the short-term, I am planning to provide business development and licensing consulting services to small- and mid-sized technology-based companies there, and if opportunities are available, in Charleston and elsewhere,” he said.
Pozner will not return to UNC-Chapel Hill. He noted that the North Carolina university “has more resources and experience” managing inventions than does the MUSC Foundation for Research Development.
Between 1998 and 2005, UNC’s Office of Technology Development received 892 inventions from university faculty, students and staff; licensed 454 inventions; filed 780 U.S. patent applications, of which 286 received patents; launched 26 start-up companies; and earned more than $16.8 million in licensing income.
Since 1997, MUSC’s Foundation for Research Development has identified and reviewed more than 350 inventions by MUSC faculty. More than $4 million in MUSC licensing revenues have been earned and more than 150 patent applications have been filed, Roozen noted in 2005.
MUSC has generated three spin-off companies—Micrus Endovascular Corp., which makes implant devices that help doctors treat brain aneurysms; Argolyn Bioscience Inc., which researches ways to make peptides more durable and stable so they can be used in drugs that treat psychosis, pain and other serious diseases and disorders; and FirstString Research Inc., which researches healing technology for skin wounds.
Micrus is based in California. When the company was conceived in the mid-1990s, South Carolina lacked the venture capital and infrastructure to nourish it. As a result, Micrus moved to the West Coast. The company went public in June 2005—the only MUSC spin-off to do so.
European Union increases duties on U.S. exports
The European Union has announced it will implement sanctions against products imported from the United States beginning on May 16.
The measures include an additional customs duty of 14% on a variety of U.S. goods—even if previously exempt from duties, according to Phil J. Minard, director of the U.S. Export Assistance Center in Charleston.
The action stems from an ongoing dispute between the United States and the EU over a provision of the American Job Creation Act of 2004 that exempts some of the profits U.S. corporations make from exporting products overseas.
“The EU sees this as an unfair subsidy for U.S. companies that put European enterprises at a competitive disadvantage,” Minard said.
There will not be a gradual increase of these additional duties but rather, an immediate implementation of the full rate. U.S. products in transit or in customs warehouses at the date of enforcement are potentially exempt from the duties depending on the day they are registered with the relevant national customs authority.
Generally, affected products include agricultural items, textiles, industrial products, electronic products, paper products and steel. The actual list of affected products is “hundreds of items long,” Minard said.
A full report by the U.S. Export Assistance Center can be found at: www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/sanctions.
html.
Minard said the real impact on companies based in Charleston and South Carolina is unclear at this time.
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