Hamilton County tops in growth in Tennessee
The number of active businesses in Tennessee rose by 5.1 percent last year to a record high of 262,462, according to business filings in Tennessee.
Tre Hargett, Tennessee’s secretary of state, said there were 8,915 new entity filings in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 8.5 percent over the same quarter last year.
The biggest increase in new business filings among the state’s major counties in the fourth quarter was in Hamilton County where initial filings jumped by 21.3 percent from a year ago to 616 new business entities.
“These numbers show that business leaders continue to invest in Tennessee,” Hargett said, noting that business filings in the Volunteer State have grown for 25 consecutive quarters.
Kroger tightens gun restrictions
Kroger is raising the minimum age to buy guns at its Fred Meyer stores, the third major retailer to place restrictions on gun sales that exceed federal law.
Like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods a day earlier, Kroger says it will immediately limit gun and ammunition sales to people 21 and older.
The nation’s largest grocery chain said Thursday that recent events show that gun retailers need to take action.
Students returned this week to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida for the first time since a troubled teenager killed 17 people there, mostly children.
Fred Meyer sells guns at 44 stores in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska. Assault-style guns sales were ended everywhere but Alaska several years ago. Special orders for those guns are now unavailable in Alaska.
Milligan Reynolds marks 80 years
Milligan Reynolds Guaranty Title, Inc., the second oldest title insurance agency in Chattanooga, celebrated its 80th anniversary Thursday
Dana Milligan and Mark Senter founded the company in 1938. Mercer Reynolds acquired a majority interest about two years later and the name was changed. Since that time Milligan Reynolds has grown to have three full time attorneys on staff, including George McInturff, Valerie Epstein and Derek Nelson, along with co-owner and chief financial officer Doris Peak who has been with the company for 40 years.
“Much has changed downtown over the years but we can say that Milligan Reynolds continues to thrive using tried and true methods while continuing to look for new ways to innovate including adding advanced mobile technology allowing a closing to occur anywhere there is a secure Wi-Fi network,” Epstein said. “One unique aspect of our business is that we have records going back to 1938 which allows us to do a more thorough search of your title. Quite often you will find an original document that helps inform your opinion of title.”
Exxon withdraws from Russia deal
Exxon Mobil will end a joint venture with Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft due to U.S. and European sanctions against Moscow.
Exxon revealed in a regulatory filing that it decided to end the partnership late last year after the U.S. expanded sanctions against Russia. The company plans to begin unwinding the joint venture this year.
The retreat will result in an after-tax loss of about $200 million – spare change in comparison to Exxon’s 2017 profit of $19.7 billion.
But ending the partnership with Rosneft appeared to dash Exxon’s hopes of drilling in the potentially oil-rich Russian Arctic, and it erases some of the legacy of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the one-time Exxon chairman and CEO.
Tillerson signed a deal with Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer, in 2011 with hopes of drilling in the difficult terrain of Russia’s Arctic waters. The partnership would combine Exxon’s technological expertise with Rosneft’s access to the area.
The deal came under strain, however, after the U.S. sanctioned Russia in 2014 over the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
Midwest states vie for Foxconn
The high stakes contest for Foxconn Technology Group’s first North American manufacturing facility, a potential $10 billion investment that could employ 13,000 people, came down to a battle between Wisconsin and neighboring Michigan, new documents released Thursday show.
The Taiwanese company also toured sites in Ohio before Wisconsin won out, thanks to a $3 billion state incentive package that’s the largest ever offered to a foreign company in U.S. history, the documents show. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s administration released 20,000 pages of documents related to the deal Thursday in response to open records requests from several news outlets.
The global technology giant plans to make liquid crystal display panels at the southeast Wisconsin plant in Mount Pleasant, located between Chicago and Milwaukee. Wisconsin won the deal last summer with help from President Donald Trump’s administration.