THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 10, 1995 TAG: 9511100461
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Centura Bank was the low bidder this week for the business of banking $1.3 million in state money for the Northeast North Carolina Economic Development Commission.
Centura's winning bid was 5.8 percent on $500,000 for 90 days and 5.7 percent on $800,000 for six months.
Last month, the economic development commission advertised for banking services. A commission spokeswoman said Centura's offer was better than those submitted by Wachovia and First Citizens banks.
The commission's executive committee opened the bids Wednesday during a meeting in Hertford.
Wachovia bid 5.4 percent for six-month notes and 5.45 percent on 90-day notes. First Citizens' bid was 5.05 percent and 5.15 percent for the same services. Branch Bank & Trust did not bid, a commission spokesman said.
The bids were announced by Jimmy Dixon, a Pasquotank County commissioner and business executive who is chairman of the commission.
Attending the executive committee meeting were Charles Ward, a Hertford auto store owner; Andrew Allen, a Plymouth businessman; Ben Berry, an Elizabeth City banker; and Mary Lilley, director of the Martin County-Williamston Chamber of Commerce.
Buck Suiter, an Ahoskie banker who is treasurer of the commission and a member of the panel's executive committee, was unable to attend the meeting.
Suiter is head of the Centura Bank branch in Ahoskie. Berry runs the Elizabeth City headquarters of the same bank. Dixon, the pump-priming chairman, is a member of the Centura board of directors in Elizabeth City.
When the commission was created by the General Assembly in 1992, the state gave the panel $2.2 million in startup funds.
When the commission elected officers at its first meeting, Sidward Boyce, an executive with Wachovia Bank in Elizabeth City, was elected treasurer.
In one of its first orders of business, the commission voted to put the $2.2 million in Wachovia Bank.
When Boyce was not renamed to the commission at the expiration of his two-year term, Berry, the Elizabeth City Centura banker, ended up on the commission. by CNB