ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512180005
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
T-Shirt Factory opens Monday
The T-Shirt Factory, a retail and special-order T-shirt shop, will open Monday on Roanoke's City Market. The store, at 307 Market St. S.E., will sell shirts featuring local scenes and novelty characters. The T-Shirt Factory also offers screen printing and embroidery for custom shirt and hat orders.
The Roanoke store is the fourth location for 6-year-old High Peak Sportswear Inc. of Lynchburg. The company also operates stores in Blacksburg and Charlottesville.
- Staff report
Premier declares stock dividend
Premier Bankshares Corp. of Bluefield, operator of about 35 banks in Southwest Virginia, on Friday declared two shareholder dividends and a stock repurchase plan.
The company will pay a stock dividend Jan. 3 of one share of common stock for every three shares that current shareholders held Thursday. Also, the company declared a quarterly cash dividend of 12 cents per share, payable Feb. 1 to shareholders of record Jan. 15.
The company also announced an increase in the company's cash dividend and a stock repurchase program for approximately 5 percent of the company's share's after the stock split.
The stock dividend will increase by 33 percent the number of the company's shares outstanding, from 4,987,802 to 6,650,402.
The cash dividend of 12 cents per common share approved by the company's board, when coupled with the stock dividend, amounts to a 14.29 percent increase from quarterly dividends of 14 cents per share paid this year, the company said.
The board authorized the company to buy back 332,500 shares of its stock. President and Chief Executive Officer James R. Wheeling said the board considered the stock substantially undervalued relative to other investments the bank could make. The stock is underpriced despite strong performance by the company compared with its peers, he said.
The stock repurchase program will provide the bank with a mechanism for protecting its shareholders, Wheeling said. The stock is a great investment, he said. "If someone else doesn't want it, we'll buy it for our own shareholders."
- Staff report
Bankruptcy talk tumbles Kmart
DETROIT - Kmart Corp. stock tumbled 15 percent to its lowest level in more than a decade in heavy trading Friday as rumors resurfaced that the discount retailer was considering bankruptcy court protection.
Kmart again denied the rumors.
``It's not anything we've done. It's not anything we're planning on doing,'' said spokeswoman Mary Lorencz.
Kmart's stock fell $1.121/2 to close at $6.371/2 on the New York Stock Exchange. That was its lowest level since Aug. 19, 1982. Trading volume was more than 24 million shares, more than four times its average for a single day.
Analysts said Kmart was the victim of uncertainty and nervousness on Wall Street over its financial liquidity and prospects for recovery after 11 straight quarters of disappointing earnings or losses.
- Associated Press
Bankruptcy filing
Three business bankruptcies were filed this week in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Western Virginia in Roanoke. All of them are personal bankruptcies that the court listed as businesses because they have commercial connections and could be of interest to business creditors and customers.
Donald Ray Olinger of Marion, a self-employed contractor selling newspapers for The Roanoke Times, filed for liquidation, reporting assets of $26,900 and liabilities of $43,976.
Winston Augustus Dorma of Roanoke, a self-employed cab driver, filed for liquidation, reporting assets of $3,800 and liabilities of $9,612.
Calvin Len Crabtree of Clintwood, an officer of Crabtree Comfort Control Inc., a heating and air conditioning repair and installation company, and of Crabtree Air Conditioning Inc., a bankrupt corporation, filed for a wage-earner plan. That plan is the personal equivalent of a corporation's plea for protection from creditors during financial reorganization. Crabtree reported assets of $48,450 and liabilities of $176,884.
- Staff report
LENGTH: Medium: 86 linesby CNB