News | Team ELS

Small business borrowing at near 4-year high in November

January 19, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

By Lucia Mutikani www.reuters.com WASHINGTON | Mon Jan 2, 2012 5:01am EST

Borrowing by small U.S. businesses hit its highest level in nearly four years in November, pointing to underlying strength in the economy.

The Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index, which measures the overall volume of financing to small businesses, surged 10.2 points to 106.4, the highest level since February 2008. The index was up 18 percent from November 2010.
“We are entering a new phase of the business cycle,” said PayNet founder Bill Phelan. “Businesses are betting on the future with increased investment spending.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Accounting and Finance, Banking, Uncategorized

Lee Enterprises Consulting announces 2012 expansion plans

January 6, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

BiodieselMagazine.com

By Lee Enterprises Consulting | December 27, 2011

Lee Enterprises Consulting of Little Rock, Ark., the world’s largest biodiesel consulting group, recently announced its plans for expansion in 2012. The plans include expansion of the group’s services into ethanol, biomass, wind, solar and geothermal, and the addition of consultants and strategic partners.

According to the group’s principal owner, Wayne Lee, the expansion is a natural progression for the group. “We are currently the world’s largest biodiesel consulting group, and most of our consultants and strategic partners are already very involved in the other alternative fuels,” Lee said. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alternative Energy, Uncategorized

Alternative-energy firm Coskata plans IPO

January 6, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

ChicagoBusiness.com

By: John Pletz December 16, 2011

(Crain’s) — Coskata Inc., the Warrenville-based ethanol startup, plans to raise $100 million in a public offering.

In a prospectus filed Friday, Coskata plans to sell shares to finance construction of an ethanol refinery inAlabamaand continue research and development. The company, which has 61 employees, uses patented technology developed in part at Argonne National Laboratory to ferment ethanol from non-food sources such as wood chips.

This is the second large IPO in the works from a Chicago-area alternative-energy company. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alternative Energy, Uncategorized

Big Oil Heads Back Home

December 6, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

By GUY CHAZAN   http://online.wsj.com/

Energy companies are shifting their focus away from the Middle East and toward the West—with profound implications for the companies, global politics and consumers.

Big Oil is redrawing the energy map.

For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alternative Energy, Convenience Store, Downstream Oil, Oil Refining, Uncategorized, Upstream Oil

Achieve Our Nation’s Energy Independence

November 28, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

By Tom Buis | November 15, 2011

Three years ago, leaders in the domestic ethanol industry gathered to announce the creation of a “new, fresh, aggressive voice in the energy debate”—Growth Energy. From day one, Growth Energy’s mission has been to drive the message of ethanol forward and debunk the myths and distortions fabricated and propagated by those who seek to perpetuate America’s addiction to foreign oil. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alternative Energy, Uncategorized

Executive Leadership Solutions Acquires 25% Stake in National Executive Personnel

November 7, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Executive Leadership Solutions Acquires 25% Stake In National Executive Personnel & Marketing Group, LLC

Ft. Myers, FL (November 4, 2011) – Brian Wright, Managing Partner of Executive Leadership Solutions, announced that ELS has purchased a 25% stake in the defunct executive search firm National Executive Personnel & Marketing Group, LLC. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Accounting and Finance, Alternative Energy, Banking, Consumer Product, Convenience Store, Downstream Oil, Oil Refining, Supermarket, Uncategorized, Upstream Oil

7 Tips for Sending Your Next Thank You Letter

September 13, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

August 9, 2011 By Jessica Holbrook Hernandez http://www.greatresumesfast.com

Sending a thank you or follow-up letter is simply not on the mind of the average job seeker. Once the interviews are over, most want to move on to the next best thing: applying for another job. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Accounting and Finance, Alternative Energy, Banking, Consumer Product, Convenience Store, Downstream Oil, Oil Refining, Supermarket, Uncategorized, Upstream Oil

From farm to biorefinery: Ethanol production efficiency improves

August 22, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

www.ethanolrfa.org (August 17, 2011)

Washington – American farmers and ethanol producers are both the most productive and most efficient of any across the globe. As the Renewable Fuels Association pointed out last week, American farmers are producing twice as much corn on the virtually the same acres as a generation ago. The same kind of productivity and efficiencies gains are being mirrored across domestic ethanol production as well.

In this week’s installment of the RFA’s series on efficiency, RFA Vice President Geoff Cooper takes on the critics who contend that both farming and ethanol production is simply too energy-intensive. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alternative Energy

Kwik Shop Tops in Topeka – Kroger convenience chain named “Best C-Store”

August 18, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Issue Date: CSP Daily News, August 16, 2011

Kroger convenience chain named “Best C-Store” in Sunflower State capital region

TOPEKA, Kansas — Kwik Shop has been named the “Best Convenience Store” in the Topeka, Kansas, area again this year by The Topeka Capital-Journal. The company–which said it is looking to expand–attributed the win to customer service.

“We’re all about serving the customer. Having what they want when they want to have it,” Brian Fisher, vice president of operations for the Kroger-owned convenience store chain with 10 locations in the Topeka region, told the newspaper. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Convenience Store

Food Fast Gets Gobbled Up – Fikes Wholesale, parent of CEFCO, grows in East Texas

August 18, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Issue Date: CSP Daily News, August 16, 2011
Fikes Wholesale, parent of CEFCO, grows in East Texas with 69-store acquisition

TEMPLE, Texas — In a deal that will add to its East Texas presence, Fikes Wholesale Inc., parent company of the CEFCO Convenience Stores chain, said that it has completed the acquisition of the 69-store Food Fast chain based in Tyler, Texas. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

As reported late yesterday in a Morgan Keegan/CSP Daily News Flash, Food Fast Corp. began operations in May 2003 upon the merger of several entities into FFC. It operates retail motor fuel and convenience stores throughout East Texas, as well as in Louisiana and Arkansas. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Convenience Store