Palmetto Bancshares to go public

One of South Carolina’s oldest banking companies says it will take steps to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Palmetto Bancshares Inc., the Greenville-based parent of 104-year-old Palmetto Bank, told GSA Business that while it has never been listed on a public exchange it is planning to public. 

The move is part of pending stock-purchase agreements with institutional investors, Chief Financial Officer Lee Dixon told the publication.

Going public will give shareholders of the closely held company more liquidity and Palmetto Bank the opportunity to pursue future acquisitions, Dixon said.

“In the next two to five years, as we really put our problems behind us and as the market starts to stabilize, we could see more opportunity in the M&A market,” he told GSA Business.

Palmetto Bank will begin working with Nasdaq on its application in the coming weeks, Dixon said.

Shareholders will vote at the company’s annual meeting in August on whether to increase the institution’s authorized shares from 25 million to 75 million.

If approved, the majority of additional stock will be issued as part of a $100 million stock purchase agreement the bank announced in May. But around 30 million shares would remain available for future use, the publication reported.

SC State: Do as I say, not as I do

Grad students who earn a course grade below a “C” are usually considered to have failed; undergrads can be trouble, too, if they get anything below a “C.” But not university presidents, apparently.

Thursday, two weeks after South Carolina State University deposed President George Cooper, who earned the equivalent of a D+ on his performance evaluation, the Orangeburg school reinstated him.

That, despite the fact that Cooper’s average score on the evaluation was 2.56 on a scale of 1 to 5, the Charleston Post and Courier reported.

The evaluation required trustees to rate Cooper on 15 aspects of his performance, including whether he maintained a professional image in state government, was prepared and informed when making budget and program requests to the state Legislature, and had a positive influence on employee morale and performance, according to information obtained by The Post and Courier.

The board voted 7-4 June 15 not to renew Cooper’s contract. However, when it met again Thursday it had two new members: Robert Waldrep Jr. and Patricia Lott, both of whom voted in support of Cooper.

Waldrep and Lott replaced Lumus Byrd and Earl Bridges. Both Byrd and Bridges had voted against rehiring Cooper as president on June 14, according to the Orangeburg Times and Democrat. Their terms expired July 1.

In addition to reinstating Cooper, the board voted also to apparently punish two board members who voted against Cooper.

Walter Tobin and Martha Scott Smith, both of whom opposed Cooper’s reinstallation on Thursday, were stripped by fellow board members of their leadership positions, The Post and Courier reported.

Tobin was to assume the chairmanship of the board in September. Smith was to serve as vice chair.

By the same 8-5 vote that brought Cooper back to the presidency, the board voted to keep Jonathan Pinson as chairman and John Corbitt as vice chairman, The Post and Courier added.

Cooper’s problems may not be over, however.

Also on Thursday, several state legislators said they want an investigation by the state Legislative Audit Council to find out what happened to millions of state and federal dollars for the school’s James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center.

State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, told The Post and Courier that he has gathered signatures from six legislators, including his own, and has commitments from two others. The audit council requires the signatures of at least five legislators before it will move forward with a performance audit of a state agency or program.

Ford said he called for the audit council investigation in response to an investigation by the Charleston paper last month which found that 12 years after the program was launched, the site sits vacant, no transportation research is under way and the center lost its federal designation.

More than $50 million has flowed to the transportation center in the past 12 years, about half for transportation programs and half for the first phase of a new transportation complex to be named in honor of Clyburn, the US House majority whip and a graduate of SC State, the paper added.