Nashville-based call center manager Sitel plans to ramp up its Las Vegas workforce to 1,000 people in the coming weeks. The company says it will hire 350 people to service customers of a fitness chain and a video game developer. Sitel has had a presence in Las Vegas for 15 years.

First Horizon National, the parent company of First Tennessee Bank, said Wednesday afternoon it has bought a Nevada investment manager that specializes in working with states and municipalities. The deal gives First Horizon a company with more than $5 billion in assets under management and services it can cross-sell to clients across Tennessee and other parts of the Mid-South.

"FTN Financial already has a significant presence in the public funds sector through our fixed income sales activities. The addition of Main Street enables us to respond to the growing demand for portfolio advisory services among this customer segment."

Analysts and investors have been eagerly waiting for First Horizon to put to use some of the excess capital it has amassed in the wake of cleaning up its mortgage-related problems. Some market watchers expect the company to expand further in Middle Tennessee, where it ranks fifth in market share. It is No. 1 in all other Tennessee cities.

An ambitious Memphis-based behavioral health venture has signed a deal to buy two facilities in Las Vegas from Universal Health Services. Strategic Behavioral Health is buying the centers after the Federal Trade Commission ruled UHS needed to shed some assets. The deal is being financed by Fifth Third, First Tennessee and Pinnacle Financial Partners, which also are backing SBH's expansion in North Carolina and Colorado.

Community Health Systems executives have ended talks to buy a struggling 380-bed hospital in Reno, Nev. The nonprofit Saint Mary's, which is owned by Catholic Healthcare West, lost more than $40 million in 2010.

Officials at National Nurses United have a spring in their spring following the ratification last week in Las Vegas of a new contract for about 450 nurses at HCA's Mountain View Hospital. The three-and-a-half-year deal, they say, could serve as a model for negotiations with HCA in a number of other states, including in important Florida and Texas markets.

One key element was the hospital’s agreement to create a staffing committee that would begin examining the hospital’s staffing grids and make changes, starting with the hiring of additional RNs in the medical-surgical units to assist with staffing and patient care needs during patient admissions and discharges, as well as to assure nurses are able to take meal and rest breaks. Additionally, the hospital agreed there would be no mandatory overtime.