The Centennial Authority, the owner and developer of the RBC Center, has granted initial approval for the arena in West Raleigh to be renamed the PNC Arena.

The new naming rights agreement is expected to take effect in March, after Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group completes its $3.45 billion acquisition of Raleigh-based RBC Bank.

The naming rights were included in the PNC-RBC deal. The arena is home to the Carolina Hurricanes and N.C. State University's basketball team.

RBC's naming rights deal expires in 2022.

PNC is used to having its name plastered on sports venues. The Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team plays in PNC Park, and PNC Field, outside of Scranton, is home to a New York Yankees minor league team.

Any costs associated with renaming the arena are the responsibility of the holder of the naming rights.

Lou Cestello, head of PNC's Southeast region, said the arena will provide a boost to the bank's name recognition in the Triangle and the state.

The 19,000-seat arena opened in 1999. It averages 1.5 million guests and 150 events per year.

Rocky Mount officials are breathing a sigh of relief after PNC Financial officials said they will keep open RBC Bank's operations center there.

Although no decisions on job cuts have been made, PNC CEO James E. Rohr said today that the Rocky Mount center is a key part of the company's strategy in the Southeast.

"We need Rocky Mount," Rohr said. "We are going to maintain a significant operation there, because we don't have an operations center in the Southeast."

RBC employs about 1,000 employees in Rocky Mount, both at the operations center and at the bank's eight branches.

David Combs, Rocky Mount's mayor, estimated that 60 to 65 percent of RBC's workers there are employed at the operations center.

Combs and other city officials hope to meet with PNC officials in the next 10 days to discuss the bank's plans.

He said the fact that it is Pittsburgh-based PNC buying RBC, and not Winston-Salem-based BB&T Bank, is good news.

BB&T has an operations center in Wilson.

"Probably in the long run this is better for our community than if BB&T had purchased it," Combs said. "We probably are not going to be as substantially impacted as maybe we could have been."
 

These days, when a company is acquired and job cuts loom the question of incentives inevitably comes up.

As for RBC Bank, the company was to receive $750,000 from Raleigh and Wake County officials for moving its headquarters from Rocky Mount.

But that money was not contingent on jobs.

PNC Financial Services  Group confirmed this morning that it has agreed to buy struggling Raleigh-based RBC Bank for $3.45 billion in cash and stock.

The deal allows Pittsburgh-based PNC to expand quickly in the Southeast, and lets Royal Bank of Canada shed its underperforming U.S. subsidiary.

"This gives us a substantial growth opportunity by bringing our products and services to RBC Bank's markets," CEO James E. Rohr said during a conference call this morning.

PNC expects to close the sale in March 2012, which is when it plans to convert RBC branches to the PNC name. PNC also anticipates that it will cut about $230 million in costs "through operational and administrative efficiency improvements."

That undoubtedly will mean job cuts, especially at RBC's downtown Raleigh headquarters. RBC employs about 5,000 people, including 500 in Raleigh.

Rohr said in a phone interview that no decisions have been made on how many jobs will be eliminated, but added that the bank plans to minimize the number through attrition and by re-training employees whose positions are cut to handle other roles.

The Canadian parent corporation of Raleigh-based RBC Bank reported stronger quarterly profit this morning, and announced plans to boost its cash dividend to shareholders for the first time in nearly four years.

But the results from Royal Bank of Canada, that country's largest lender, were slightly weaker than analysts had expected, Bloomberg News reports. The stock fell in morning trading.

Royal Bank didn't include any updates on RBC Bank's future in the announcement about its second-quarter results this morning. Royal Bank has hired JPMorgan Chase to advise it on a possible sale of RBC Bank, according to recent published reports.

"Although I will not comment on speculation with respect to RBC Bank, we do remained focused on turning around these operations and we are making good progress," Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon said on a conference call. "We remain fully committed to the U.S. market and committed to generating strong returns."

The Canadian parent of RBC Bank is seeking buyers for the Raleigh-based lender, Bloomberg News reported, citing unnamed sources.

Royal Bank of Canada has hired investment bank JPMorgan Chase to provide advice on a potential sale, Bloomberg reported.

The recession and real-estate slump hurt financial results at RBC Bank, spurring speculation that Royal Bank might seek to sell the division and ditch its U.S. strategy.

Last month, Royal Bank reported record quarterly results, thanks partly to narrower losses at RBC Bank. RBC Bank CEO Jim Westlake said he's optimistic that the business will return to making money later this year.

RBC Bank announced today that it plans to boost by $500 million the amount of new mortgages it finances this year.

The Raleigh-based bank said it plans to add more than 30 new mortgage loan officers across the Southeast to handle the increased volume. The bank currently has 125 loan officers.

The $500 million amounts to a 33 percent increase over the bank's current originations.

"We think that we've probably punched under our weight in the mortgage business," CEO Jim Westlake said in an interview this morning.

"It's a business we know very well. It's a business that is changing quite dramatically due to all of the issues. We think there's opportunities to step up by doing different things."

Royal Bank of Canada shares fell today after the parent of Raleigh-based RBC Bank reported a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit.

Royal Bank announced that profit for the period that ended Oct. 31 fell about 9 percent to $1.12 billion. The company's international banking division, which includes RBC Bank, posted a loss of $155 million.

That division has been hammered during the recession, hurt by RBC Bank's exposure to the Southeast's slumping real-estate market. The division is expected to begin having quarterly profit in 2011, RBC Bank CEO Jim Westlake told analysts on a conference call.

But Royal Bank officials, who last year reorganized RBC Bank after the subsidiary began losing money, are eager to see further improvements.

"Our priority is to get that bank performing at a much, much higher level," Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon told analysts. "And then we'll make a decision in terms of how much more we want to invest in the U.S. banking sector generally."

Piedmont Community Bank Holdings, the new company headed by former RBC Bank CEO Scott Custer, said today it has entered into an agreement to acquire Community Bank of Rowan from Michigan-based Capitol Bancorp Limited.

Terms were not disclosed.

Community Bank of Rowan is based in Salisbury.

Capitol Bancorp, not to be confused with Raleigh-based Capital Bank, is based in Lansing, Michigan.

The bank has been selling off its affiliate banks this year. In its third quarter earnings release on Monday it said it had sold 10 such banks this year and had another five sales pending.

Capital Bancorp reported a $47.7 million loss in the quarter.

Custer has said Piedmont's business strategy is to create a network of banks in the Carolinas and Virginia that can benefit from a centralized infrastructure - such as back-office operations and information technology systems.
 

Free golf instruction and free goodies! Those are things to like.

And if you've sort of been interested in golf but never gave it a try, this is an ideal opportunity to learn about the game.

More than 20 Carolinas PGA professionals will be giving 10-minute
lessons and free clinics, and the first 500 registrants receive a free
goody bag during the Carolinas PGA Play Golf America Day  on Monday at TPC Wakefield Plantation.