The nonstop from Durham

Black Enterprise, May, 1995 by Frank McCoy

ON A CLEAR, WINTER AFTERNOON, A $6.5 MILLION TWIN-ENGINE Beechjet speeds quietly above storm clouds toward Atlanta and a meeting with the city's former mayor, Maynard Jackson, now chairman of Jackson Securities, a full-service brokerage firm. The eight-passenger aircraft, which flies higher and faster than commercial flights, features baby-soft, taupe leather, a mini-747 cockpit, a fully stocked bar and a television for each passenger. Inside this aerial office its owner, Sloan Financial Group Chairman, President and CEO Maceo Kennedy Sloan, sprawls his lanky, six-foot, seven-inch frame across two seats and smiles.

And why not? He's steering his firm into an industry that promises sky-high future profits, and he's already proven himself to be a good navigator at this altitude. Last November, his PCS Development Corp. was awarded five of the hotly contested personal communications services (PCS) licenses by the Federal Communications Commission. This wireless, noncellular, "narrowband" system, designed for computers, cordless phones, fax machines and paging devices, is expected to drive profits in the multibillion-dollar telecommunications industry during the next decade and beyond. Sloan Communications, one of several ventures he owns in partnership with his protege Justin F. Beckett, controls 48% of PCS Development's voting stock and seven of its 15 board seats.

Also, with the April launch of Calvert New Africa Fund, Sloan and Beckett continue a strategy of tapping investment opportunities in Africa, begun two years ago with Sloan Financial's creation of New Africa Advisers in Johannesburg, South Africa. Calvert New Africa, a pan-African, open-ended, retail mutual fund, is the product of a 50/50 partnership between Durham, N.C.-based Sloan Holdings Inc. and Bethesda, Md.-based Calvert Group Ltd.

All of this has been made possible by the soaring success of Sloan Financial Group, Sloan's power base in Durham and the parent company of New Africa Advisers and Sloan Holdings as well as NCM Capital Management Group. A money management firm founded by Sloan nearly a decade ago, NCM Capital now has 55-employees and offices in Atlanta, New York and San Diego. It manages more than $3 billion in fixed-income, equity and balanced portfolios.

From North Carolina to South Africa, from high finance to wireless communications, in air and on land, Maceo Sloan seems to be everywhere at once. His flight plan: parlaying his track record and visibility as one of the nation's most respected black money managers into opportunities in new industries and emerging markets. His destination: the pinnacle of a new black business empire. "I've been surrounded by entrepreneurs all my life," he declares. "Having watched them develop their base in very adverse conditions, I feel I have an obligation to take the base and move it to a different level."

RAISED ON AMBITIOUS ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Sloan, 45, is used to high visibility. Until recently, the Morehouse College grad was best known as founder and CEO of NCM Capital, formerly a division of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. He created the Durham, N.C.-based money-management firm in 1986 and purchased it in 1991 from NCM Life, the nation's largest black-owned life insurance company.

In counterpoint to his impeccably tailored suits and impressive corporate jet, Sloan projects an I'm-just-a-small-southern-businessman persona. Until recently, this image was confirmed by his 1983 Chevy Impala, which was replaced (and "not a moment too soon," his employees kid him) by a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee. But don't be fooled. His relaxed exterior masks a J.D. from North Carolina Central University and an MBA from Georgia State University.

It also conceals the type of education money can't buy: decades of daily exposure to several generations of successful black businesspeople. Sloan is the scion of one of America's most illustrious black entrepreneurial families. He is the nephew of former NCM Life CEO William Kennedy and a direct descendant of Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, a cofounder of the 96-year-old insurance company. Business and ambition are in the blood.

During the past year, Sloan and his executive vice president, partner and alter-ego, Justin F. Beckett, started interrelated businesses in America and in Africa. Between Sloan Communications, New Africa Advisers, Calvert New Africa and NCM Capital, Sloan has to do a lot of juggling under the umbrella of Sloan Financial Group. Those who know him say that, for him, it all comes with the territory of empire building.

"Sloan comes from an Afrocentric business tradition, but he puts a 21st-century spin on it," says Progress Investment Management Co. Executive Vice President Thurman V. White, whose firm once included Sloan Financial as part of its roster of emerging investment managers. "He is a gifted, talented and a very driven entrepreneur with a model for creating an African-American-controlled, diversified, financial and communications conglomerate."

PCS: NO WIRES ATTACHED