This story starts with my grandfather. He emigrated from Russia through Ellis Island when he was 3 years old. Upon settling in Chicago, he went to school and raised his family on Chicago’s south side. There, a tradition was born. [Continue]
Any account of the good deeds of Dan Nicolai is written without his permission. It is enough for the president and CEO of the more than 100-year-old Castle Rock Bank to know his contributions to his community; otherwise he’d prefer the world not know the good he’s done. Go visit Castle Rock, though, or talk to his customers and the organizations supported by the Nicolai family over the years, and it’s clear: Dan Nicolai is one of the best things to happen to Castle Rock, Minn. [Continue]
In 2007, First State Bank of Eastpointe, Mich., was faced with some tough decisions. “Our loans were deteriorating, brought on by large measure by what was becoming a difficult economy in southeast Michigan. I don’t know if the recession hit southeast Michigan earlier than the rest of the country or if we just felt the effects of it. But in 2007, we looked at our balance sheet and could see the need to recognize some losses,” said Gene Lovell, president and CEO of the bank, which has $664 million in assets. [Continue]
After she was fired from her job at Capital City Federal Savings and Loan (later Meritor Savings Bank), Mechelle Vinson sued the Washington, D.C., bank and its vice president Sidney Taylor. Vinson alleged that Taylor had coerced her into a sexual relationship with him and made demands for sexual favors at work. [Continue]
Employers commonly carve out restricted activities from a new employee’s duties until a previous restrictive agreement becomes inactive. What happens when a previous employer thinks a former employee is still violating an agreement? [Continue]
In 2007, Dan Braam was a member of the Economic Development Authority in New Ulm, Minn., when it decided to tackle affordable housing. Their initiative began just as the housing market imploded. When Braam re-joined the EDA in 2016, not much progress had been made. [Continue]
As Todd Langenfeld, president of Farmers Trust & Savings Bank in Earling, Iowa, followed the legislative wrangling over tax reform during November and December, he said he “felt like a ping pong ball, going back and forth on remaining a sub-S bank.” Langenfeld engaged in multiple conversations with the bank’s Chief Executive Officer Roger Kenkel about the possibility of converting the bank to a C-corp. “Under the new law, the highest marginal effective rate comes in right at 30 percent with the 20 percent passive income exemption,” Langenfeld said. “Under C-corp tax laws, I would be under a 41 percent effective rate — the 21 percent corporate rate plus the 20 percent dividend rate. I know this is an over-simplification but I am good at math and 30 percent is better than 41 percent.” [Continue]
Most of us are familiar with non-disclosure, non-solicit and non-compete agreements – known to attorneys as “restrictive covenants.” But what exactly do they do, and what distinguishes one from the other? Attorney Ansis Viksnins from Monroe Moxness Berg in Minneapolis, who works with banks on employment law matters, provides clarity. This is part one of a two-part series on restrictive covenants. Part two will look at what happens when disagreements over restrictive covenants arise. [Continue]
On the surface, economic growth in 2018 seems just shy of a sure thing. The most obvious clue to that sentiment came just four days into the year, when the Dow Jones industrial average surpassed 25,000 for the first time in its history. [Continue]
In the mid-1980s, the majority of South Dakota’s 150 or so banks had assets of $50 million or fewer. One of those banks was the oldest bank in the state, First Dakota National Bank of Yankton, operated by Larry Ness, a former examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Ness was eager to make the most of his experience, which included stints managing two other banks in the state: the Mitchell National Bank and the First National Bank of Volga. Some 30 years later, Ness has grown the Yankton bank to $1.588 billion in assets. [Continue]