CrossRoads reports on growth

Assets, loans and total deposits were up in 2016 at CrossRoads Financial Federal Credit Union, chief executive officer and president Janet Bantz told the credit union’s annual meeting Saturday.

Bantz said total assets at year-end were $51,063,048, up 3.1 percent from 2015. Total loans were $28,263,356, up 8.1 percent over last year. Home equity loans were up 19.4 percent, land total deposits increased 2.6 percent to $46,301,610, Bantz said.

CrossRoads has 9,123 members.

Jo Johnston and Joe Vinson were re-elected to new three-year terms on the credit union’s board of directors. Dale Pearson is chairman of the board.

Becky White was recognized at the annual meeting for 10 years of service.



Delayed again

Walgreens this week dramatically lowered its offering price for Rite Aid, agreed to shed hundreds more stores to satisfy federal regulatory officials, and pushed the deadline for the proposed merger to the end of July.

The new offer is between $6.50 to $7 per share, depending upon how many stores need to be divested, The Associated Press reported.

To satisfy the Federal Trade Commission, the companies had planned to sell no more than 500 stores, but that number was bumped up to 1,200 on Monday.

Pennsylvania based Rite Aid has 4,600 drugstores in 31 states. If the merger goes through, the combined Walgreens and Rite Aid would have more than 11,000 stores, and that’s after shedding 1,200.

The deal has been in the works for more than a year. In December, Walgreens said it would sell 865 stores to retailer Fred’s for $950 million. That sale is still in place, The AP reported. But it’s not clear who would buy the additional stores.

"We are working hard to have this deal approved and for the time being we don't want to even think that the deal could not be approved after so many months," he told analysts during a conference call to discuss earnings,” Stefano Pessina, chief executive officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., told investors earlier this month.



Joins staff

Paula S. Sibery has joined the staff of Alexander Group of Raymond James and Associates in Portland as a client service associate.

She has 19 years in the financial services industry, most recently with First Merchants Bank in Portland. Other staff members include financial adviser Annette Alexander, senior licensed sales associate Lori Stimpson, senior client service associate Laura Laux, and financial adviser trainee Brandon Mock.



Pleased with Trump

The chief executive officer of Allegheny Technologies Inc., parent company of Portland Forge, said this month he welcomes President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted ATI’s Rich Harshman as saying, “We spent a lot of time looking at and analyzing TPP and did not think that it was a good, fair trade agreement for American manufacturers.”

Harshman believes American manufacturers suffered because previous administrations going back did not enforce existing trade agreements.

“We think that the change in tone and the recognition of that is important,” Harshman said.



Still lowest

Mercer County continued to have Ohio’s lowest unemployment rate in December.

The county’s jobless rate was 3.1 percent, while the state’s rate was 4.9 percent.

Neighboring Darke County posted a jobless rate of 4.1 percent in December.

The national unemployment rate in December was 4.7 percent.



On board

Board members of the Jay County Chamber of Commerce elected at the chamber’s annual meeting include Chris Braun, Kayla Darby, Julie Hurt, Natalie McConnell, Scott Manwaring and Jason Schmiesing.

Adam Homan was elected chamber president for the coming year. J.B. Goodrich will be vice president, and Ryan Suman secretary.

The chamber will present its annual awards March 2 at Jay County High School.



Certified

Kyle Champ of Portland Insurance Agency has been designated a Certified Insurance Counselor after completing an insurance education program through the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research.

Champ received the designation from Dr. William T. Hold, president of the Society of Certified Insurance Counselors at a ceremony in Indianapolis. The society is a key member of the National Alliance, which conducts more than 2,500 educational programs annually.



More green

Autoweek reported this week that General Motors and Honda Motor Company plan to invest about $85 million to build hydrogen fuel cell stacks at a plant in Michigan.

Honda of America is a key customer of FCC (Indiana) which has plants in Portland and Berne.

The joint GM-Honda venture, called Fuel Cell System Manufacturing, will make the stacks for the next-generation of green vehicles. 

The work will be done at GM’s Brownstown Township plant south of Detroit.

It’s a 50-50 deal and will create about 100 new jobs.

“We also wanted this new fuel cell system to be built in the United States,” Toshiaki Mikoshiba, president of Honda North America Inc., said in a prepared statement. “At this stage in the advancement of the technology, it is more efficient to have one operation building the fuel cell system for unique vehicles to be offered by each company.”



Plant closing

PendaForm will close its Bluffton plant March 25, eliminating 47 full-time jobs and 28 temporary positions.

The company, which signed an agreement with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation in 2014, is expected to refund thousands of dollars in economic incentives as a result to the plant closing.

PendaForm, which has a plant in Portage, Wisconsin, had promised to repay the incentives if its workforce fell below 58 before 2025.

The company has manufactured truck bed liners.



Doctor honored

Dr. Sarfraz Khan of Meridian Health Services has earned the American Psychiatric Association’s Distinguished Fellowship award, the organization’s highest honor.

“Dr. Khan has been instrumental in Meridian’s medical integration efforts of primary medical care and behavioral health,” said Meridian’s president Hank Milius said in a prepared statement. “He is fully deserving of this award.”

Dr. Khan, chief medical officer, vice president of medical services and medical director for psychiatry at Meridian Health Services, is also a volunteer clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Muncie location.

He completed his medical education at Pakistan’s Rawalpindi Medical College in 1990 and has been chairman of the IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital Department of Psychiatry since August 2010.



Quarterly results

Raymond James Financial reported quarterly net revenues of $1.49 billion and quarterly net income of $146.6 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31.

The company reported record client assets under administration of $616.9 billion, record financial assets under management of $79.7 billion, and record net loans at RJ Bank of $15.8 billion.



Big pledge

CVS Health has pledged to raise at least $10 million over the next three years to support cardiovascular research and education for women.

Helena Foulkes, president of CVS Pharmacy, has been named national chair of Go Red For Women, an annual campaign designed to raise awareness of hear disease and stroke as the number one killer of women.

In conjunction with American Heart Month in February, CVS customers can support the effort by making donations at CVS locations or online.



Scotty spills

Scotty’s Brewhouse, which maintains a popular eatery and watering hole in Muncie, contacted authorities this week to report that employees’ W-2 forms had been leaked after its email system was hacked.

W-2 forms for 4,000 employees were sent in PDF form to an unknown individual.