Here's hoping Adam Monroe knows he's now in ACC sports country.

Monroe, 43, is the new North American president of Novozymes, a Danish biochemical company with more than 450 employees at its U.S. headquarters in Franklinton.

The official announcement notes that Monroe was "born and raised in Arkansas, received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Arkansas and is a diehard Razorback fan."

Monroe replaces Lars Hansen, who has returned to Denmark to head the company’s European business.

Novozymes is the world's largest producer of enzymes and has seen a surge in demand tied to ethanol production.

The company recently completed a $26 million expansion to its Franklinton facility, adding more research, lab and office space. The plant also supplies enzymes for other uses, including brewing beer, making detergents and treating wastewater.

Progress Energy said this morning it is applying for $200 million in federal stimulus funds to help pay for the company's development of Smart Grid technology in the Carolinas and in Florida.

The U.S. Department of Energy is planning to award $4.5 billion in Smart Grid grants as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. A Smart Grid is an electric transmission and distribution system that provides real-time data to the power company and customers on the customer's energy use and on the cost of power generation at any given instant.

"It will allow our customers ultimately to have more direct control of their energy use and their bill through pricing signals and pre-pay options," said CEO Bill Johnson. "The end result will be improved system efficiencies, energy conservation and a cleaner environment."

Sallie Krawcheck, the former Citigroup executive named last week to head Bank of America's wealth-management business, said she wants to build on Merrill Lynch’s history rather than tear it down, Bloomberg News reports.

“What I’m not going to do is turn this into a place I’ve been before,” she said in an Aug. 7 video message to the brokerage’s 15,000 financial advisers. “Those are great institutions, but this is a fantastic, fantastic business.”

Krawcheck, 44, said she doesn’t like hearing that the merger “means the end of the Merrill Lynch culture.” Krawcheck is a UNC-Chapel Hill grad who has risen to become one of the most powerful women on Wall Street.

Asked to describe herself, Krawcheck said on the video, “I’m a southerner by birth, but a northerner for some number of years. I’m a huge college basketball fan, particularly the University of North Carolina. I’m a runner, but I’m very slow.”

The Bloomberg story notes that Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis rebuilt Merrill’s management since it bought the investment bank in a government-brokered deal on Jan. 1, replacing more than three dozen senior executives and investment bankers.

BB&T is a likely candidate to take over a troubled Alabama bank, a deal that would be the biggest ever for the Winston-Salem lender, according to published reports.

Analysts say that BB&T is a top contender to buy Colonial BancGroup, which has about $26 billion in total assets, the Winston-Salem Journal reports.

SunTrust of Atlanta also may be interested in Colonial.

Such an acquisition would present challenges and opportunity for Kelly King, who took over as BB&T's CEO in January.

Law Enforcement Associates reported that sales and profit rose during the second quarter, as the small Raleigh company won new customers for its security and surveillance products.

Revenue rose to $6.8 million from $1.8 million during the same quarter last year. Law Enforcement also saw net income of $789,000, reversing a loss of $167,000 last year.

The company expects demand to increase for its products, including digital recorders and under-car inspection cameras used by police and military, boosted by federal stimulus money aimed at improving security.

LED maker Cree continues to prosper in spite of the recession, posting record quarterly revenue and higher profit in the latest quarter.

The Durham company announced after the markets closed this afternoon that it posted a profit of $9.7 million in the fiscal fourth quarter that ended June 28, up from $8.4 million a year ago.

The profit of 11 cents per share in the latest quarter was beyond the range of seven cents to nine cents that the company projected in late May based on higher orders for LEDs for light fixtures and for illuminating notebook computers and other gadgets.

"Our strong Q4 results were an outstanding finish to a very good [fiscal] year and reflect the succes of our strategy to drive growth in LEDs and LED lighting applications," CEO Chuck Swoboda said in a prepared statement. He added that the company's backlog in the current quarter "is very strong as we see growing demand across our LED product lines."

Corporate tech-training company Global Knowledge has agreed to purchase the operations of the largest corporate training company in Canada, financially ailing Nexient Learning.

In an e-mail message to Global Knowledge employees, CEO Brian Branson wrote that the acquisition will combine the "talent and resources of both organizations."

The deal is still being finalized. A spokeswoman for Global Knowledge said the Cary-based company would have no comment on the deal until it was completed and publicly announced. Branson's e-mail did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Cornerstone Therapeutics, one of the Triangle's newest publicly traded companies, reported this morning that second-quarter profit fell 19 percent.

But revenue from its respiratory drugs rose 78 percent to $25 million. That was a bit less than one analyst had expected and Cornerstone's stock fell 18 percent in morning trading.

Chimerix, a Durham biopharmaceutical company, said Tuesday it raised $16.1 million to continue testing antiviral drugs for treating smallpox.

The latest round of financing brings the seven-year-old company’s total haul to $56 million, but Chimerix is still at least several years away from having a commercial product, said chief operating officer Kenneth Moch.

The state banking commissioner today ordered Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. to halt foreclosing existing loans as well as originating new loans in the state.

The cease-and-desist order issued by N.C. Commissioner of Banks Joe Smith against Taylor Bean, a major mortgage lender based in Ocala, Fla., is in effect pending an audit of the mortgage company's loan files.