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 | | ARCHIVES 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | Sound Off Issue #20.21 :: 05/23/2007 - 05/29/2007 Free Times Hallucinates PMSC Troubles Former PMSC Executive/ Legal Counsel Weighs In | Innovista is fortunate to have Duck Creek Technologies as a founding partner and anchor tenant (“If It Quacks Like a Duck …,” April 18). South Carolina, Columbia and USC are fortunate to be the home of a world-class entrepreneur like Larry Wilson. The addition of Duck Creek to Innovista is a smart recognition that Columbia is home to an outstanding “cluster” of companies and talent in the insurance technologies sector.
Columbia is home to fine companies like Computer Sciences Corporation, TM Floyd, Companion Technologies, Blue Cross Blue Shield, FiServ, Acrosoft, Trumbull and now Duck Creek. They combine to create some of the broadest, deepest insurance technology expertise in the United States. Emerging “future fuels” research will almost certainly create jobs over the next two decades, but Innovista and USC are right to focus on real technology jobs right now — and to include insurance technology in the mix.
Duck Creek and the other insurance technology businesses being created by Pequot Venture are already producing real jobs to help launch Innovista. Duck Creek began last year with zero employees and will soon reach 70 employees in Columbia.
Contrary to Free Times’ assertions, Wilson and the management team he is assembling has a major track record of success. Wilson and his team started PMSC in 1974, took it public in 1981, and sold the company to CSC for $1 billion in cash, options and assigned debt in 2000. Name another South Carolina entrepreneur who created a billion dollars in public company value in the last 25 years of the 20th century.
Free Times suggests that Wilson was “embattled” and PMSC was a “failing company” in the ‘90s. The facts belie this assertion. PMSC’s restatement of financial position after 1993 showed an increase in net worth of over $10 million and an increase in earnings per share of over 5 cents. The income statement was improved and the balance sheet was stronger. After 1993, PMSC’s revenues doubled; over 2,000 new jobs were created, and over $500 million was invested in research and development.
Steve Morrison
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP
Columbia
Clarification
Santee Cooper does not operate 11 coal-fired power plants (“Coal Controversy,” May 16), but rather 11 coal-fired generating units at four plants, Winyah (four generating units), Cross (three) Grainger (two) and Jefferies (two). | |
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