With six urgent-care clinics or hospitals within 25 minutes, Yadkin Valley Community Hospital may have outlived its purpose. The 20-bed hospital in Yadkinville closed in May amid litigation and finger-pointing between county officials and its operator, Kansas City-based HMC/CAH Consolidated. The county owns the building, but HMC retained the licenses and a lease for the building through July 31. HMC says it lost $55,000 in May at the Yadkin hospital and would lose $300,000 if forced to stay open through July, according to a legal filing. The hospital has averaged less than 10 daily patients in recent months. Seeking a new operator, the county received bids from three potential suitors, including Winston-Salem-based Wake Forest Baptist Health and Elkin-based Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital. But the bids were withdrawn, prompting new talks with HMC, which asked for $1 million upfront, $300,000 a year to provide indigent care and $1 for every $2 spent on capital improvements. That wasn’t affordable, County Manager Lisa Hughes says. Hugh Chatham is still considering a bid, but no deal had been struck by mid-June. Hospitals in Belhaven, Blowing Rock and other small North Carolina cities have either closed or converted to other health care uses in recent years. The notion “that every county needs a hospital has led to really small markets,” says Mark Holmes, director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center in Chapel Hill.
Briefs
EDEN — Mohawk Industries will invest $8 million and add 105 jobs to more than 170 at its local carpet-and rug-manufacturing plant. The Calhoun, Ga.-based company employs about 1,200 people in North Carolina. Average annual wage will range from $35,000 to $40,000, compared with Rockingham County’s $36,900. Mohawk will receive a state grant of up to $765,000 if it meets job-creation goals.
HIGH POINT— BNC Bancorp, parent company of Bank of North Carolina, will buy seven CertusBank branches in South Carolina for about $7.8 million. BNC will gain about $284 million in deposits and $210 million in loans. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Greenville, S.C.–based Certus, which has struggled to meet federal capital requirements, is selling certain deposits, loans and branches in separate deals with four financial institutions. BNC has 47 offices in the Carolinas and about $4.2 billion in assets.
WINSTON-SALEM — Reynolds American completed its $25.8 billion acquisition of Greensboro-based Lorillard, gaining the Newport brand, the U.S.’s No. 2 overall and No. 1 best-selling menthol cigarette. As part of the deal, Reynolds sold five brands — KOOL, Salem, Winston, Maverick and blu eCigs — to ITG Brands, a new Greensboro-based subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco Group, for about $7.1 billion.
MADISON — Remington Outdoor named Jim “Marco” Marcotuli president and CEO. A co-lead director since September 2014, Marcotuli was previously CEO of Anniston, Ala.-based North American Bus Industries. He replaces George Kollitides, CEO since 2012, who will remain as an adviser for one year. Also, Chief Financial Officer Ron Kolka is retiring; his successor has not been named. America’s oldest gun-maker
is owned by New York-based Cerberus Capital Management, which has been trying to sell the company amid slumping sales.
KERNERSVILLE — Chad Setliff will become president and chief operating officer of the 50-bed Novant Health Kernersville Medical Center. He is vice president and chief operating officer for Novant Health Clemmons Medical Center and Novant Health Medical Park Hospital and will retain those positions. He replaces Joanne Allen, a company employee for more than two decades and president since 2010, who will stay on as a part-time employee until she retires at year-end.