I do love owning a small business. This year, if it were up to me, Christmas would be cancelled (or at least scaled back significantly). As to the person who said these words yesterday, they know they can say this to me without fear of reprisal, which means that most of the time working for me rocks, except for those times that it really sucks.
In other news TV meteorologist Nash Roberts passed away earlier this week. This is no revelation down here except for those that have been hiding under rocks as Nash was even honored with an impromptu half hour special which recounted his life on WWL TV. I feel safe in saying no other weather guy in this land approaches Nash’s level of local fame, which extends to the point of adulation but no other area of the country is as vulnerable to the impacts of hurricanes than New Orleans.
The big news yesterday was Gulfport based Hancock Bank buying out NOLA based Whitney. As with any wedding there is lots of fluffy, happy PR and the like but make no mistake that Hancock would not be doing this deal unless it were a steal. Whitney, plagued by the lax lending standards which became the pre financial crash norm was a TARP recipient (along with Jackson based Trustmark). OTOH Hancock never left its roots as a conservative asset based lender and has emerged from the 2008 financial crash as strong as ever. The new bank will have branches stretching from Tampa Florida to Houston Texas as Hancock’s long time strategy of growing the I-10 corridor continues to pay off big. Hancock is now the nation’s 32 largest bank. Continue reading “Sop, sometimes working for you really sucks……”