Tuesday, August 25, 2026

N.C. State Treasurer Speaks Out Against Un-SAFE Merger: A Raw Deal!

 

 "It does not take my expertise to know this is a raw deal."                         NC State Treasurer - Brad Briner *

"My objections to the merger are threefold:"  [read full text here]

  1. North Carolina and other states have witnessed multiple transactions involving a merger and we see the same results over and over – either higher costs or lower quality of care – and in some cases, both. 
  2. The intended benefit of this transaction in capital investment over many years and the creation of a number of jobs, will likely occur without this consolidation. 
  3. The effective sales price is ZERO. A promise of new capital investments and jobs that will most-certainly be created anyway means that authorizing this
    consolidation is selling for no real upside - and a lot of downside.

 ðŸ˜Ž SAFE to say this sounds very familiar, doesn't it? 

Briner was born in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Harvard Business School.

  Yeah, but what does a State Treasurer know about finance? Just some nut, probably has a blog! 

Monday, August 24, 2026

The SAFE/Boeing Mega-Merger Mistake: "Can't Happen Here!"

   Comment Cluck-ery...

 ✅ Comments on the WakeMed post [link]:  "I by no means said or meant only a large CU COULD take us [SECU] over, it's that it WOULD never happen."

"What would be relevant and welcome is for you to challenge me on the actual point I was making, which is the notion of us being "taken over" by a small credit union is extremely improbable, silly, and not a practical reality." "It’s a theoretically possibility with as close to zero probability as it gets."  

   ... uh oh!

😎 Really hate [not really!] to bring this up, but in North Carolina in late 2024 - right under your beak! - CIVIC FCU took over Local Government FCU. [link]  The regulators called it a merger!

At that time:

  • CIVIC had total assets of @ $120 million; LGFCU had @ $4 billion in assets. 
  • CIVIC had @ 10,000 members; LGFCU had @ 400,000 members. 
  • CIVIC was losing money; LGFCU had been profitable for 40+ years.
  • CIVIC has in 2 years lost $1 billion in assets, lost 100,000 members and lost over -$175 million in net income.
😎 THIS MERGER WAS APPROVED BY ALL OF THE REGULATORS!

  Reckon they "missed something"... that everybody else could see?