TheSunNews.com: Business

Myrtle Beach lawyer accused of Ponzi scheme

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:35 EDT

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued charges Thursday against a Myrtle Beach lawyer accused of defrauding dozens of investors of $3.5 million in a high-yield Ponzi scheme.

The SEC accuses M. Mark McAdams of working with former investment broker R. Dane Freeman of Flatrock, N.C., to attract investors on false promises of fast and high returns on investments in bonds and notes, according to a complaint filed in a federal district court in Columbia. The pair, acting as Global Holdings LLC, never purchased a bond or generated funds on behalf of investors. Certain investors were paid with funds raised from new investors, making the fraud a Ponzi scheme, said Graham Loomis, assistant director of the commission's regional office in Atlanta.

McAdams and Freeman could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Coastal business | Sister city snubs Myrtle Beach

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:35 EDT

Coastal Business

Burlington, Ontario

Sister city snubs Myrtle Beach

U.S. auditors rewarded as economy fell

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:35 EDT

Banks weren't the only ones giving big bonuses in the boom years before the worst financial crisis in generations. The government also was handing out millions of dollars to bank regulators, rewarding "superior" work even as an avalanche of risky mortgages helped create the meltdown.

The payments, detailed in payroll data released to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, are the latest evidence of the government's false sense of security during the go-go days of the financial boom. Just as bank executives got bonuses despite taking on dangerous amounts of risk, regulators got taxpayer-funded bonuses despite missing or ignoring signs that the system was on the verge of a meltdown.

The bonuses were part of a reward program little known outside the government. Some government regulators got tens of thousands of dollars in perks, boosting their salaries by almost 25 percent. Often, though, rewards amounted to just a few hundred dollars for employees who came up with good ideas.

MGM studio heads to auction block

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:35 EDT

In Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s newest movie, "Hot Tub Time Machine," a main character looks around a leg-warmer-dotted ski slope and asks "Is there some kind of retro thing going on this weekend?"

There certainly is at the studio. MGM is dialing back to its past as it prepares to be sold yet again and is stressing the value of its film archive as a major asset.

Six companies made nonbinding bids in January for MGM, which owns the rights to 4,100 movies and TV shows and has a stake in future James Bond and "The Hobbit" films. MGM is preparing to receive binding acquisition offers today.

A tale of two economies

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:35 EDT

For the super-rich and everyone else, the economic recovery is taking place in two very different gears.

A British company is betting there's a market in North America for a $200,000 sports car built with Formula One race technology by announcing Thursday that it will unveil the very expensive new toy late next year.

"Following any recession, there's a resurgence," said Ron Dennis, chairman of McLaren Automotive. "We intend to catch that wave."

Making way for Wal-Mart

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:04 EDT

Framing for the eighth Wal-Mart along the Grand Strand is rising in Garden City Beach, but don't get your shopping lists ready just yet.

The 155,147-square-foot store, under construction at the corner of U.S. 17 Business and the Garden City Connector, won't open until late summer or early fall 2011. It will be a Supercenter with a grocery, pharmacy, deli and optical departments, and when it opens, it will stay open around the clock, Wal-Mart spokesman Glen Wilkins said.

Work also has started on some road improvements around the site aiming to ease the traffic the store is expected to attract. Crews are widening the Garden City Connector and will lengthen the left-turn lane headed north on U.S. 17 Business onto the connector. A stoplight also will be added on the connector at the westernmost entrance to the store.

Coastal Business | City Market undergoes change

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:18 EDT

Coastal Business

CHARLESTON

City Market undergoes change

Senate approves jobs bill

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:05 EDT

Companies that hire unemployed workers will get a temporary payroll tax holiday under a bill that easily won final congressional approval Wednesday.

The bipartisan 68-29 vote in the Senate sends the legislation to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it today.

It will be the first of several election-year jobs bills promised by Democrats to be enacted into law, though there's plenty of skepticism that the measure will do much to actually create jobs. Optimistic estimates predict the tax break could generate perhaps 250,000 jobs through the end of the year, but that would be just a tiny fraction of the 8.4 million jobs lost since the start of the recession.

Old laws, raids leave bar owners foaming

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:05 EDT

A real brouhaha has beer lovers in the City of Brotherly Love frothing over with anger.

State regulators say it's a simple matter of making sure bars and beer manufacturers aren't scamming the system. But bar owners say hard-to-spell beer names and typographical errors show how archaic Pennsylvania's Prohibition-era liquor laws really are.

It all came to a head after an anonymous complaint that a Philadelphia bar was selling beer that had not been properly licensed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, an agency created in 1933 to regulate the sale of alcohol.

Housing starts slip from January

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:05 EDT

Housing starts fell 5.9 percent in February from the month prior, the latest sign that builders are acting cautiously in the face of competition from discounted bank-owned properties.

New housing units were built at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 575,000 units in February, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, below the revised January estimate of 611,000, but still 0.2 percent above the 574,000 rate of February 2009.

Single-family homes fared better than multi-family units. Single-family homes were started at a rate of 499,000 units, 0.6 percent below the revised January figure of 502,000. The February rate for buildings with five units or more was 58,000, down 43.1 percent from a revised figure of 102,000 in January.