Fairwinds Financial Converting to LLC

ORLANDO, Fla. – Fairwinds Financial Services Inc., a wholly-owned CUSO of Fairwinds CU, is in the process of converting from a C Corp to a limited liability corporation. Tammy Douglas, president/COO of the CUSO said Fairwinds Financial Services began evaluating the conversion at its 2002 planning meeting. “We had our CPA do a preliminary tax evaluation to see what the tax benefits would be if the CUSO operated as an LLC. We’d rather return money back to the credit union than to Uncle Sam in taxes,” she said. Douglas said she hopes the CUSO’s conversion to an LLC will be completed by the end of March. It would be retroactive to Jan. 1. Fairwinds Financial Services provides insurance and investment services to Fairwinds CU’s nearly 106,000 members. The credit union is the fourth largest state-chartered CU in Florida. Douglas also said Fairwinds Financial Services plans to move the investment portion of its services under the credit union’s umbrella because of the pending SEC decision. She said she expected that to be completed by late second quarter or early third quarter 2003.