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Marysville, Ohio-based Scotts Miracle-Gro announced that Dave Evans has resigned as chief financial officer and executive VP and has accepted a similar role with Columbus-based Battelle, the world's largest nonprofit research and development organization.

Evans joined Scotts Miracle-Gro as director of finance for operations in 1993 and moved through several roles before being named CFO in 2006.

HCN editors have been listening with interest to Peter Alexander, the chief executive of BMC, since his days as chief executive of another U.S. building supply company. (Check out our October 2007 profile.) Today his company is larger, the stakes are higher, and his influence on the industry in general is greater. And, he’s still interesting.

When given a choice, most Americans with traditional health coverage say they chose that option because it offered a good network of providers, according to research findings by the not-for-profit Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

In contrast, among those with high-deductible consumer-driven health plans, most cited the lower premiums and opportunity to save money in a health savings account (HSA) or health reimbursement arrangement (HRA).

Employee morale
The following is a response to the article, “Unhappy employees are staying put.”

“[Unhappy employees are] soon to be going, or at least when the economy improves — that’s when they will leave in droves because of extreme low pay and lack of respect from employers. Why wouldn’t they? No one likes being used or abused. Do you?”
— Rick Heath

A proposed 1% additional sales tax on selected lumber products that was part of Governor Jerry Brown’s attempt to close a state budget gap has been dropped, much to the relief of California LBM dealers. The tax pitted retail lumber sellers against lumber producers by shifting fees the timber industry currently pays to its customers.

A May 16 report from the Mortgage Bankers Association added another bright note to the housing market, with the percentage of U.S. homeowners behind on their mortgages falling to the lowest level since 2008. The delinquency rate for residential mortgage loans decreased 7.4% during the first quarter of 2012.

Foreclosures are not improving at the same rate, however. The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process as of March 31 was 4.4%, relatively unchanged from the previous quarter and down one basis point from 4.5% a year ago.

Ken Hannah, a former senior VP at Home Depot, has been named the new CFO at J.C. Penney.

Hannah brings more than 20 years of finance, operations and audit experience from a wide range of companies that include General Electric, Boeing and The Home Depot. He will report to chief operating officer Mike Kramer.

A former co-founder of Building Industry Partners has formed a new venture that targets privately owned “middle market” LBM companies. Anchor Peabody LLC, founded by Jason Fraler, offers private equity capital, mergers and acquisitions and debt advisory to the building and construction industry. 

Joining the firm’s advisory board is Tony DeCarlo, the former CEO of Lumbermens Merchandising Corporation (LMC).

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has announced a comprehensive reform plan for the housing finance system that would transition Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a new mortgage securitization system for single-family and multi-family conventional mortgages.

Boise, Idaho-based Boise posted fourth-quarter sales of $600.4 million, up 14.6% from $524.1 million in the same quarter of 2010.

"The past year was our most successful year since our inception four years ago," said Alexander Toeldte, president and CEO of Boise. "Our EBITDA excluding special items was a record $340 million, we generated $121 million in free cash flow, and returned $169 million of capital to our shareholders through share repurchases and dividends."

International Paper (IP) has announced the completed acquisition of Temple-Inland, which will now become a wholly owned subsidiary of IP. Under the terms of the transaction, each issued and outstanding share of Temple-Inland common stock will fetch $32.00 in cash, including the assumption of approximately $700 million in Temple-Inland net debt. The total transaction value is approximately $4.5 billion.

NCR has announced the introduction of a point-of-sale system that will allow independent retailers to manage transactions, track sales and inventory, process credit cards, and market to customers on both touch-screen terminals and Apple mobile devices.

The system is a cloud-based platform that NCR said would give independent retailers a multichannel "sell anywhere" capability.