Mike HatcherHatcher joins Four Bridges
Mike Hatcher, CEO of Medical Waste of America and Hatcher-Hill Properties in Knoxville and a former chief operating officer of TeamHealth, has joined FourBridges Capital Advisors as a senior adviser.
The Chattanooga-based FourBridges is an investment banking firm serving business owners across the Southeast. Hatcher’s focus for Four Bridges will be on East Tennessee, although his background in medical services and technology will be applicable to companies throughout the Southeast.
“I engaged FourBridges when I was preparing to sell my company,” Hatcher said. “As a business owner, I experienced firsthand the unique expertise and proven process that the FourBridges team offers their clients.”
A certified accountant with more than 40 years of experience in finance and operations, Hatcher co-founded Knoxville’s TeamHealth, now a publicly traded company that generated $2.82 billion in net revenue in 2014. He also co-founded and successfully sold Nutritional Support Services Ltd., a parenteral and enteral nutrition company, and White Stone Group, a health care software provider.
Hatcher sits on the board of directors for East Tennessee’s Mountain Commerce Bank and The Convenience Network, a Knoxville-based digital media company. He is also active with Vanderbilt University’s Owen Entrepreneurship Center.
Jason TaylorLas Vegas replaces Taylor as publisher
The Las Vegas Review-Journal has a new publisher recruited and hired by the family of billionaire casino mogul, who secretly bought the newspaper last fall in a sale that has been heavily scrutinized over transparency concerns.
The owners said Thursday in a statement that Craig A. Moon has been appointed publisher of Nevada’s largest newspaper, effective immediately. Moon was the publisher of USA Today from 2003 to 2009. A career executive with Gannett publishing, he also led newspapers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Florida.
No reason was given for the sudden replacement of Jason Taylor, who was publisher for just six months.
Taylor works for Gatehouse Media LLC, which sold the newspaper at a markup to the Adelsons but was kept on a contract to manage the newspaper.
Taylor served as president and general manager of the Chattanooga Times Free Press from 2007 to 2014.
Home sales up in December
The number of people signing contracts to purchase homes managed to inch up last month, thanks to unseasonably warm weather in the Northeast.
The National Association of Realtors said Thursday its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index crept up 0.1 percent to 106.8. Signed contracts jumped 6.1 percent in the Northeast, while they declined in the other three major U.S. regions.
Last month was one of the warmest Decembers on record on the East Coast. The tiny bump is consistent with many analysts’ views that home sales may rise only slightly this year after a solid increase in 2015.
Mortgage rates fall below 3.8 percent
Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week for a fourth straight week amid persisting turmoil in stock markets and global economic worries.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slipped to 3.79 percent from 3.81 percent a week earlier. That means it stays below the symbolically significant 4 percent level. The rate has increased from its 3.66 percent average a year ago but remains well below its historic average of 6 percent.
The average rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages declined to 3.07 percent from 3.10 percent.
Broker cleared of rate rigging
A British court on Thursday cleared six brokers of trying to fix the benchmark interest rate known as Libor, the London interbank offered rate.
The six men had been accused of helping convicted banker Tom Hayes manipulate the Libor rate – the key rate that banks use to borrow money from each other – over four years.
Hayes was sentenced to 14 years in prison last year for manipulating the rate while working at UBS and Citigroup between 2006 and 2010. He was the first to be convicted by a British jury of Libor rigging, but he said he was made a scapegoat for a common practice.