Commercial Truck Insurance in Kinston, NC

Kinston-based charter-flight operator flyExclusive began public stock trading last week after completing its combination with a New York special purpose acquisition company.

Shares closed at $6.85 on the first day of trading after opening at $11.98 per share. Shares traded as low as $3.71 earlier in the day. On Tuesday afternoon, shares were trading for about $6.

SPAC company EG Acquistion’s deal with flyExclusive was announced in October 2022 with an estimated equity value of $600 million at the time. The company’s market capitalization after the first day of trading is about $500 million, founder and CEO Jim Segrave says.

“Today marks another milestone in our company’s mission to elevate the private aviation experience,” Segrave said in a release. “We built flyExclusive around the value that minutes matter for our customers, and this principle will continue to guide the disciplined approach that has defined our success in the industry.”

In a Linkedin post, Segrave said the IPO is “a testament to our dedicated team, loyal customers, and the unwavering support that has fueled our journey.”

Company executives were pleased with the offering despite the declining share price, which Segrave blamed partly on pressure in the past few weeks from New York Stock Exchange officials that required flyExclusive to create more trading liquidity. Segrave owns 75% of the company’s shares, while EG officials also control a significant percentage. They have agreed not to sell shares for at least three years.

“They told me that without any float, the stock would be incredibly volatile and the short sellers would be able to manipulate the price,” Segrave said in an interview Thursday night.

In response, flyExclusive agreed to convert 2 million warrants, which each had a cost basis of about 18 cents per share, into 400,000 common shares to facilitate more public trading. Segrave says his investment bankers believe the investors who owned the converted warrants immediately sold their shares Thursday, making instant profits but creating downward pressure on the stock.

Segrave noted that about 30% of the investors in EG Acquisition converted to flyExclusive shares, compared with about 10% in most SPAC deals. “That’s the best SPAC performance in at least two years. We smoked it,” he says. Under SPAC rules, investors are able to redeem their shares for the amount of their investment until the IPO is launched.

Segrave launched flyExclusive in 2015 after selling his Segrave Aviation to Delta Air Lines in 2010. It offers flights and fractional ownership in about 100 light, mid- and supermid-sized jets. It employs 755 people, including about 400 in Kinston, a Lenoir County town of 19,000 where it provides maintenance services.

Segrave’s great-uncle, Felix Harvey III, was a Kinston businessman with many investments and among the founders of Global Transpark, where flyExclusive is based. While Harvey led a publicly owned bank, flyExclusive is believed to be the first non-financial publicly traded company based in Kinston, Segrave says.

“FlyExclusive has become one of the fastest-growng providers of premium private jet charter experiences thanks to their world-class leadership team, business model designed to maximize utilization and flight unit economics, and the consistent high-quality service they provide to customers,” Gregg Hymowitz, CEO and director of EG Acquisition Corp. said in a release

EG Acquisition is a “blank-check” company that raised $225 million when it went public in 2021. It was among hundreds of similar SPAC businesses started between 2020 and 2022, whose investors trusted veteran investors such as Hymowitz or celebrities such as Alex Rodriguez to buy promising businesses.

It was typically a faster process than traditional public offerings, while SPAC owners often made optimistic projections about the prospects of their business, Bloomberg News reported this week.

Unfortunately, many SPAC firms have had financial problems with at least 21 filing for bankruptcy this year, prompting losses of more than $46 billion based on their peak market valuations, Bloomberg reported. Those insolvencies included office leasing firm WeWork, electric scooter company Bird Global and Charlotte-based Sunlight Financial, which provides financing for solar power installations.

About 110 post-SPAC firms were trading for less than $1 as of November, Bloomberg noted.

FlyExclusive is the fifth-largest U.S. charter/fractional private jet operator. Peers Surf Air, Jet.AI, and Volato have also had IPOs this year. Chamblee, Georgia-based Volato, which offers charter service on HondaJets that are made in Greensboro, started trading in early December at $13.75. It closed Thursday at $3.69.

Segrave has said his lengthy experience in the aviation business and flyExclsuive’s operating model makes it a more financially promising company than its peers.

FlyExclusive forecasts revenue of $323 million this year, and a net loss of $27.6 million. Next year, revenue is expected to soar to $497 million, with a net profit of $6.8 million. Massive IPO costs affected this year’s results, Segrave told the Private Jet Card Comparisons newsletter.

After working on the transaction for more than a year, Segrave expressed relief that the IPO had finally happened. “I feel like I was in a championship fight, I got beat up and it was a battle to get through. The New York Stock Exchange does their job, and I have no complaints, but it just about beat me to death.”

Charlotte-based Enpro has agreed to acquire California-based Advanced Micro Instruments for $210 million to expand its analyzers and sensors business.

Advanced Micro provides analyzers and sensors to natural gas, biogas, industrial processing, cryogenics, food processing, laboratory, wastewater and aerospace companies.

The deal is expected to close in early 2024, and Enpro said the acquisition is expected to be accretive to its sealing technologies division revenue growth and profitability, in addition to Enpro’s earnings.

“Acquiring AMI, an industry leader, will build on our strategy to invest in products and technologies that safeguard critical environments in key secular growth markets,” said Enpro CEO Eric Vaillancourt in a statement. “AMI’s innovative analyzer and sensor solutions will add to our existing portfolio of critical process technologies.”

Advanced Micro’s sensors detect contaminants in a variety of processes, including natural gas and biogas streams, which enable operators to avoid flaring and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Enpro’s stock fell $1.03 to $159.10 in Thursday morning trading.

Advanced Micro is majority owned by McNally Capital LLC, a Chicago-based private equity firm.

Enpro’s last deal was the November 2022 sale of GGB, its mission critical surface engineering solutions business, to The Timken Co. for $305 million.

Winston-Salem-based Truliant Federal Credit Union has been on a growth tear in the recent year, causing it to pass $5 billion in assets, CEO Todd Hall says.

It reflects a 20% increase from the start of 2023, and is more than double from 2016, when the credit union reached $2 billion in assets. Truliant reported net income of $22.6 million during the first nine months of 2023, according to federal filings.

Truiliant has added or replaced about a half dozen new branches in central North Carolina since 2019, and opened two offices in the Greenville, South Carolina market over the past 13 months. A third Greenville-area office is slated to open in 2024.

Truliant had an “overwhelmingly positive response” to some certificate-of-deposit offers in the past year to attract savers seeking higher yields as interest rates rose, says spokesman Heath Combs.

“Over the last few years, we’ve diversified our income streams by adding services and expanding into new lines of business,” he adds. Unlike many credit unions, the company is an active small business lender, with about $630 million of commercial loans outstanding as of Sept. 30.

Truliant has also boosted its brand awareness by putting its name atop the former Winston Tower building in downtown Winston-Salem, which housed the headquarters of Wachovia Bank for many years. It also opened a large operation center this year near Hanes Mall in the Twin City.

The credit union is the seventh-largest financial institution based in North Carolina, ranked by annual revenue, according to Business North Carolina research. It has 944 full-time employees as of Sept. 30.

Truliant is a tenth the size of the biggest N.C. credit union, Raleigh-based State Employees’ Credit Union, which has about $50 billion in assets. SECU’s assets have declined by a few billion in the past year as it didn’t offer high rates to attract or retain dep

osits, compared with some of its peers.

Raleigh-based Coastal Credit Union has $4.9 billion in assets, spokesman Joe Mecca says.

Truliant dates to the mid-1950s when workers at the Western Electric plant in Winston-Salem formed a credit union. For many years it was known as AT&T Family Credit Union before changing to Truliant in 1998.

The credit union said this week that Linell Johnson will succeed Cosby Davis as chief financial officer on Jan. 1. Johnson has worked at the credit union since 1994.

Out with the old and in with the new.

Kinston’s Roses variety store has undergone an extensive remodel and will have a grand re-opening on Thursday, Dec. 14. Roses is located at 2509 N. Herritage St.

Roses has been a fixture in Kinston for over half a century according to Jeff King, vice president of sales and marketing for Variety Wholesalers, which has owned Roses since 1997. Variety Wholesalers is headquartered in Henderson, N.C. and that was where Paul Howard Rose established the first store in 1915.

“Other than a short time in the late 90s, Roses has been proud to serve the Kinston community dating back to the early 1950s. We’ve operated a store in downtown Kinston for roughly 60 years, operating as Roses Five & Dime and then later as Super 10 and now Roses. We opened this location, formerly a Winn-Dixie grocery store, in March of 2010,” King said in an email.

King said the time had come to just go in and redo the store with an expansion and make it bigger. The remodel began the last week of August and the business remained open.

“The store increased in size by taking the former fitness center space that was located between Roses and Dollar Tree. Overall, we were able to increase the square footage of the sales floor by 15% by removing offices that were at the front of the building and recapturing floor space from the back room,” said King. So, we analyze on a year-to-year basis of stores that we want to remodel. This one was put up to be remodeled earlier this year. And so, we hit it in the third quarter when we started. Now, we are ready to celebrate and welcome everybody back and we’re excited for everyone to see the results of the hard work our team members have put into the store.”

He could not confirm what the cost of the remodel was immediately, but said Roses has their own internal crews that handle construction and reset during these projects.

“We’re proud to have been a part of the Kinston community since the late 1950s and remodeling this store is a chance for us to give customers who have supported us a better shopping experience. The larger sales floor will allow us to bring even more great deals to better serve Kinston and the surrounding communities,” said Tom Whaley, senior director of real estate for Variety Wholesalers.

King hopes the remodel might prompt an unknowing customer or someone from out of town visiting to stop by and check Roses out. He added that there will be 40 to 50 team members depending on the time of year.

“We want to attract more customers, newer customers, people who may have driven by and not given us a chance.”

Danny Rice has dedicated his entire life to serving others. Last week, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper recognized him for that service.

Rice received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine at the Lenoir County Commissioners meeting on Nov. 20. It was presented to him by his longtime friend, Rob Bizzell, a prominent Kinston businessman and philanthropist.

“He is most worthy of this award,” Bizzell said. “He has given so much of himself to Kinston and Lenoir County.”

The award was a total surprise to Rice, who has typically organized and conducted this type of honor for others.

“I had no idea it was going to happen,” Rice said. “I’d been at other county commissioner meetings for similar presentations, but this one surprised me. It was such a big honor, especially to receive it in front of the county commissioners.”

Bizzell organized the effort to recognize Rice. He — along with Lenoir County Board of Commissioners Chair Linda Rouse Sutton, former Kinston City Councilwoman Alice Tingle and current Lenoir County Commissioner June Cummings — wrote letters of recommendation for Rice to receive the honor.

North Carolina’s governors have awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine since 1963. It is given to persons who have significantly contributed to the state and their communities through their exemplary service and exceptional accomplishments. Past awardees include the Rev. Billy Graham, Dean Smith, Richard Petty, Craig Hill, Bill Ellis, and others.

“I don’t think I know of anyone any more worthy of this award than Danny,” Sutton — who received the award in 2010 — said. “I honestly couldn’t believe he hadn’t already received it. … He’s been integral to this community and county for many years.”

Rice, 72, is a Hamlet native who graduated from East Carolina University in 1973 with his undergraduate degree in social work; he later earned his Master’s in Social Work from UNC in 1982.

After a brief tenure in Boone, Rice came to Kinston in 1974 to work as a youth coordinator for Woodmen of the World. Since then, he was a social worker at the Baptist Children’s Home (Kennedy Home) from 1976-82, a social work supervisor at the Caswell Center from 1982-84, the director of volunteer services at Caswell from 1984-86, and the director of community services at Caswell from 1986 until his retirement in 2010.

Rice was the founding executive director of the Caswell Center Foundation in 1999 and served until 2010.

His community service is legendary; he’s served his ECU alma mater in a variety of roles, was a national board member and governance committee chair for WoodmenLife/Woodmen of the World, and is the current chair of Children’s Home Fraternal Project for the WoodmenLife jurisdiction of North Carolina.

He has served and led the Ram Neuse Lions Club, Lions Industries for the Blind, Kinston’s Friends of the Homeless, the Kinston-Lenoir County United Way, the Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce, the Community Council for the Arts, Big Brothers/Big Sisters and is a dedicated leader at Spilman Memorial Baptist Church.

Serving his community is vitally important to Rice.

“Volunteerism is the rent we pay for the privilege of living in such a great community,” Rice said. “It is a privilege to serve.”

Bizzell said, “He has always served selflessly. He gives up his time and shares his talents. He loves Kinston, and his heart is here. He’s done everything he can to make this a better place to live.”

Rice was an important voice in bringing the Woodmen Community Center — now renamed the Kinston Community Center — and the Lions Water Adventure Park to Kinston more than a decade ago.

“I’m so proud of the community center and the water park,” Rice said. “I’m also proud our water park is the only one in the United States that caters to the visually impaired.”

Rice has received many honors and accolades for his service to his community. He was named the Citizen of the Year by the Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce in 2012, received the Silver Beaver Award from the Boy Scouts of America, the Mr. Woodman Service Award from WoodmenLife, and the Governor’s Award of Excellence for Volunteer Service and Public Service.

He has received the Outstanding Field Instructor award and has been named a Centennial Legacy Leader from his beloved East Carolina University. Rice has been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Kinston Rotary Club and a Melvin Jones Fellow by the Kinston Lions Club; he also received the International President Humanitarian Award by the latter club.

Sutton also praised Rice’s wife, Johnnee.

“She has always been 100% supportive of everything Danny has done,” Sutton said. “Most of the time, she’s been right there beside him, helping along the way.”

Danny and Johnnee have been married for nearly a half-century; they celebrate their 49th anniversary in March.

“I would never be able to do anything without the support of Johnnee,” Rice said. “There were many times she was home taking care of our boys and allowed me to serve our community. But she’s a big volunteer; she was recently honored by the library at ECU with a lifetime service award. I’m so proud of her.”

Whether it’s the celebrated music program or the top-notch science instruction or a connection as direct as family, North Carolina A&T State University has captured the attention of three of LCPS’s most successful graduating seniors. A&T has mirrored their interest by short-listing the trio for its most prized merit scholarships.

Kinston High School seniors Kam Bradshaw and Javiar Grady and Shamiah Hall of Lenoir County Early College High School are finalists for A&T’s Distinguished Scholars Programs — the Dowdy, the Cheatham-White and the February One scholarships. Each of the four-year scholarships covers tuition and other basic expenses for first-year students as well as enrichment opportunities, including study abroad.

The three students became scholarship finalists after being accepted into A&T’s Honors College — on the basis of their grades, recommendations and essays — and completing a video interview. They’ll spend Feb. 16-17 on the university campus in Greensboro getting to know more about the school, meeting fellow finalists and sitting for additional interviews.

“I know A&T has a very inclusive and engaging community and I’m excited about the opportunity to be a part of that community,” Shamiah said.

With a cousin who attended A&T, the university has been on the senior’s radar “for a while,” she said.

Just months away from graduating from Early College with both a high school diploma and an associate of science degree from Lenoir Community College, her focus on A&T has sharpened because of her intent to pursue a biology major and a career in medicine, possible pediatrics. “They have a great, great bio program,” Shamiah said.

Kam Bradshaw has a similar story. His mother, Tiffany Bradshaw, is an A&T alumnus and he’s an admirer of the university’s science program. “I want to go to school for science and become a dentist, so this is a good science school,” he said.

He’s headed to this month’s campus visit with a “be yourself” approach to the interviews and the encouragement of his grandfather, Donay Robinson, to envision college “as my future,” Kam said. “My granddad is one of my biggest motivators. He’s always motivated me to go to college. I’ve always pushed myself to do that.”

Kinston High classmate Javiar Grady heard the call of A&T and it sounded a lot like the Blue and Gold Marching Machine, the university’s award-winning band. Joining the Marching Machine could be the next step in Javair’s rapid progress from a novice musician as a KHS freshman to captain of his school band’s brass section and, as a senior, assistant drum major.

“Band has brought me a lot of inspiration since my freshman year,” he said. “My math teacher my freshman year asked me if I wanted to play the sousaphone. I was, like, I don’t know what it is but I’ll play it. She started teaching me in her classroom upstairs and somehow we moved to the band room and the rest is history.”

Music is a major interest for Javiar but not a college major. “I want to major in elementary education,” said Javiar, who would be the first in his family to attend a four-year college.

Still, his interest in the arts runs deep at Kinston High. He attended North Carolina Governor’s School in theater this past summer and is a member of the Drama Club and Gospel Choir. He is active in the FBLA, a business and leadership club, is a student representative on the School Improvement Team and works as an AmeriCorps student tutor.

Both Javiar and Kam are filling the last year of their high school career with Advance Placement courses and college classes through LCC.

Kam is also an AmeriCorps tutor and is a member of the Spanish Club, Art Club and Anchor Club, a service organization. He is a veteran of the KHS soccer team.

Shamiah’s recent accomplishments reflect her future goals. She attended N.C. Governor’s School in natural science, conducts undergraduate research through UNC-Wilmington’s CCURE program and is a member of her school’s Science Olympiad team. An AmeriCorps tutor, she is secretary of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society and a President’s List student at LCC.

KINSTON, N.C. (WNCT) — Bedbugs were the last thing the Webb Family expected to see when checking on their Aunt Betty.

“When they came up to her, there were bedbugs noticeably crawling on her body,” family member Danny Webb said.

Betty Webb lived in Kinston Hotel Apartments, a senior living community in Kinston. After talking to residents in the building, Danny said his family came to a conclusion.

“This seems to be an issue that is building-wide,” Danny said.

Residents can pay to have their apartment fumigated, Webb said, but it does not solve the problem.

“They are charging residents per apartment to exterminate in a communal building that’s non-effective,” Webb said. “The bugs are in the walls, they’re in the carpets, they’re throughout the building, so when you exterminate one apartment, they just come for the other apartments.”

Webb reached out to the City of Kinston for help.

“We have a responsibility to make sure we take care of our elders,” Kinston City Council Member Felicia Solomon said.

Solomon said she wants to be part of the solution and protect Kinston’s most vulnerable populations.

“I’ve been in conversations with the new property manager during the past couple days. From my understanding, it was the apartment that we got the initial call from and there was another resident that I know is being treated,” Solomon said.

Solomon had the city’s environmental services inspect the dumpsters outside the apartments.

“Fortunately, there was no evidence or sighting of bedbugs which was good,” she said.

As for the inside?

“They have hired I think pest control company that will now begin treating apartments,” Solomon said. “The way that I heard it, is that it’s not from the responsibility of the resident to call, but it’s getting ready to be worked, embedded, in the processes built in this apartment building.”

This information has not been confirmed with Kinston Hotel Apartments. 9OYS reached out several times and stopped by Kinston Hotel Apartments. The property manager declined to comment and referred 9OYS to Kinston Hotel Apartments Regional Manager Sheldon Henman.

9OYS also reached out to East Carolina University to learn more about bedbugs.

“They live not more than six feet away from our resting places like our beds. They climb when we are sleeping because they are active in the night. They climb, they feed, they go back to their hiding spots,” ECU Biology Teaching Assistant Professor Mirian Watts said.

Watts said bedbugs live about one year. Adult females can lay between two and five eggs a day.

“In one year, you can have four generations, considering every four months you have a group of adults reproducing again, so it can quickly become a very large population,” Watts said.

Which can make getting rid of bedbugs hard, she said.

“You might be cleaning one apartment, but they will be hiding behind the walls and moving and going to the adjacent place,” Watts said. “Everybody needs to be on board when it comes to eradicating populations in apartment buildings.”

The City of Kinston said they plan to monitor the apartments.

“This is something that we want to keep our hands on, eyes and ears open, and give them the chance they’re trying to take advantage of … making sure that our residents are taken care of,” Solomon said.

Webb said he is not willing to wait.

“We are not taking her back. We are going to find her somewhere else to live. Not everybody has that luxury. Some people just have to go back to the situation,” Webb said.

Kinston Hotel Apartments property management group is Landmark Property Management Company. 9OYS reached out to their regional manager and has not heard back. 9OYS also reached out to the president of property management for Fitch Irick, another group, which has ties to Kinston Hotel Apartments. We have also not heard back from them.