| Business doings
This week, Houston recruitment firm Allen Austin Executive Search Consultants opened its first North Carolina office, in Cary. The company specializes in finding people to fill executive and top-level management positions for companies in industries including life sciences, oil and gas and retail.The Cary office is at 1201 Crossroads Manor Court. Allen Austin was founded in 1996 and has four other offices in Madison, Wis., Washington, D.C., San Antonio and Ridgefield, Conn.New businessesActive Healthcare, a Raleigh company specializing in respiratory products, is opening a facility at University Tower, 3100 Tower Blvd. in Durham.Fetch Pet Care, a franchise that offers pet-sitting and dog-walking services, has opened for business in North Raleigh. Kelly Stroud, who owns and operates a Chapel Hill franchise, is also owner of the North Raleigh facility.Camp Bow Wow, a day care and pet-boarding facility, is open for business at 107 Woodwinds Industrial Court in Cary.
Village Coffee brews up growth
Village Coffee is branching out. Village Coffee founder Tommy Lowery currently owns three stores -- the original in Troy and two in east Montgomery -- and he's sold licenses in Millbrook, Prattville and Enterprise as well as one in California. He says he's negotiating a dozen other license deals. The Alabama-based company is growing through licensing, which allows the buyer a more affordable and more flexible opportunity than franchising, Lowery said. Under a franchise agreement, the store operator follows instructions from corporate on almost every aspect of running the business. In a license agreement, the store owner has permission to use a company's name and sell its products, according to Daniel Slocki, a counselor at the Auburn University Small Business Development Center.
Lord of the Rings Inc.
It's hard to remember now, when every respectable household contains the Special Extended DVD Edition of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, but the celebrated trilogy was once considered a somewhat iffy proposition. That's part of the explanation for how Jackson, a rather obscure director from Kiwiland, was able to gain artistic control over what Newsweek once called "the most expensive and ambitious movie project in history." And by filming in New Zealand, where he had built his very own world-class production facility, Jackson was able to use the Pacific Ocean as a moat, protecting him from Hollywood interference. The result was that rare thing, a global film franchise that bears a personal stamp — an intimate epic. But the trilogy's impact wasn't just felt onscreen. Offscreen, it both rewrote and refined the way these entertainment behemoths are produced and marketed, reaping billions of dollars in the process.
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