More than $785 million has been invested in renewable energy in North Carolina since the passage of a landmark 2007 state energy law requiring greater use of solar, biomass and other forms of clean energy.

The investment total was released today by the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, a Raleigh trade group the represents the developers whose projects represent much of that $785 million.

The trade group issued the data to promote the economic benefits of clean energy at a time that some legislators are trying to repeal the state's policy. In 2007 North Carolina became the first Southern state to require electric utilities to use renewables to offset nuclear power and coal-burning power plants.

The Sustainable Energy Association lists Davidson, Robeson and Person counties as receiving the greatest investment, accounting for more than half the total amount. Davidson leads the group with $130.3 million. Those three counties have seen an explosion of industrial scale solar farms.

Wake County received $36.7 million and Mecklenbrug $23.5 million, the association said. Chatham got $18.4 million and Durham $12.2 million. Johnston was near the bottom with $2.5 million.

Raleigh investment company Triangle Capital Corp. posted net investment income of $10.2 million in the second quarter, up from $4.6 million during the same period a year ago, the company reported late today.

Triangle Capital makes loans to midsize, privately owned businesses; it also takes a minority ownership stake in its portfolio companies.

In May, the company recognized a $12.2 million capital gain from its investment in a bag packaging equipment company based in Statesville.

The gain amounted to 66 cents per share and was Triangle Capital's largest profit from an investment to date.

For the second quarter, net investment income on a per-share basis totaled 55 cents, up from 38 cents a year ago.

The company made $15.7 million worth of new investments in the second quarter.

"Our existing investment portfolio continues to perform well and we continue to find attractive new investment opportunities in the lower middle market," said CEO Garland S. Tucker III in a prepared statement.

Triangle Capital shares closed up 47 cents at $17.91. The stock is up 17 percent over the last year.

The N.C. pension fund that provides retirement benefits for 820,000 teachers, state employees and others gained 7.94 percent in the third quarter, just missing its target of 8.05 percent.

Total assets in the plan increased to $69.7 billion as of Sept. 30, state Treasurer Janet Cowell's office reported today.

While real estate investments saw gains for the first time this year during the quarter, the fund still missed targets for global stocks, which account for half of the total assets. That category gained 12.99 percent, less than the 13.15 percent target.

Hatteras Funds has has hired Brian Jacobs as its new CEO.

Founder and former CEO David B. Perkins will continue as chairman. The two men will work together on corporate strategy for the firm which manages $1.8 billion in alternative investments such as hedge funds, venture capital co-investment funds and open-end mutual funds.

'Brian is a proven leader with 26 years of broad industry experience who can take Hatteras to the next level,' Perkins said in a statement.

Jacobs was most recently with Baron Capital in New York. He also spent eight years at Allianz Global Investors where he led sales and distribution of Allianz and PIMCO muutal funds and oversaw 200 employees.

According to the company's statement it will soon add employees in sales and client services.

Duke University joined other colleges across the country on a list it would have preferred to avoid: academic institutions whose endowments have been rocked by the recession.

Duke's endowment lost 24.3 percent of its value for the year that ended June 30, reports our brother blog, Campus Notes. The endowment has returned an average of 10 percent a year for the past decade.

Duke, like major research institutions across the nation, was hit hard by turmoil on Wall Street. The endowment is now worth $4.4 billion.

Interim finance director Keith Herrmann told the city council that Durham's $171 million investment portfolio is safe, despite the ongoing turmoil in financial markets.

"We have no exposure to the stocks of AIG or Lehmann or Washington Mutual, these stocks that have been making headlines these last few days," Hermann said during the council's work session Thursday.