Friday's Daily Pulse

› Bold City Finally Coming Out in 12-Ounce Bottles [Florida Times-Union]
Bold City Brewery finally has its bottling up and flowing. The first 12-ounce bottles went out to the distributor on Wednesday and should be in a few local stores in the next day or two. The brewery has been selling some 22-ounce bottles, but its old bottling machine didn't really work very well, so the staff has been bottling those by hand. But with a new (used) bottling line, they've moved into the 12-ounce production. Susan Miller, president and CEO of the brewery, said she's also talking to Winn-Dixie and thinks it could be showing up there soon.
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› Ocala Business Donates $20,000 Worth of Toys for Program [Ocala Star-Banner]
While many parents find it difficult to stay below budget while Christmas shopping, employees with CCS Mechanical had the opposite problem Tuesday at Toys R Us. With more than an hour of toy raiding under their belts, they had only stockpiled a dozen or so carts with $5,000 worth of merchandise, far below the $20,000 raised to purchase toys for Toys for Tots. “I was pretty excited to hear that they were going to participate, because it helps in a big way for the kids. It’s really not about the business,” said Mark Amat, store manager. After three hours of nonstop shopping, Amat opened a separate checkout lane just for the exhausted employees - and the more than 70 carts full of presents that snaked throughout the front of the store. On Thursday, the toys - 1,500 in all - were dropped off at Marine Corps League Detachment 1072. Peter Stern, Toys for Tots coordinator for the league’s Marion County West arm, said for the past four years, CCS Mechanical has been their single biggest contributor.

› Bradenton-Sarasota Called Top Retiree Community [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
Portfolio.com, the national business news site, named the Sarasota-Bradenton market as the most desirable community for retirement. The ranking is welcome news in a region that is still getting over the effects of the Great Recession and clearly banking on a rebound in the influx of retirees to fuel its economy. In fact, many of the communities in the upper range of the list of 157 communities compiled by Portfolio.com represent economies heavily dependent on the real estate industry that are now struggling with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Charlotte County was ninth of the top 10 retirement communities, which included six other Florida communities. The rankings were based on an analysis of data from the American Community Survey, conducted in 2009 and released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September. The communities analyzed by Portfolio.com were from the top 157 metropolitan and "micropolitan" areas that had at least 40,000 residents who could be classified as seniors.

› Orange County Mayor-Elect Convenes 1st Jobs Summit [Orlando Sentinel]
Orange County Mayor-elect Teresa Jacobs kicked off her first in a series of planned jobs summits Thursday, using the audience of about 130 local government and business leaders to lobby for a business-expansion tax break on which she had campaigned and which she hopes to put to voters this spring. "We're talking about building a lasting, sustainable economy," Jacobs said of the summits and her plans for the tax break. Jacobs' tax-abatement proposal would allow local governments to vote to give certain businesses as many as five years' worth of property-tax breaks on new-equipment purchases and building expansions. State law allows local governments to grant such breaks now, but Jacobs wants to expand the list of eligible businesses to include emerging sectors such as health care, biotechnology and digital media.

› Disney, Universal Win Insurance Waivers [Orlando Sentinel]
Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando have won waivers from the federal government that exempt bare-bones health plans the two resorts offer part-time employees from new requirements imposed by this year's overhaul of the U.S. health-care system. The waivers, which were granted earlier this fall, will permit Orlando's two largest theme-park operators to continue offering limited insurance plans — commonly referred to as "mini-med" plans — that have low premiums but also low caps on annual benefit payouts. The two resorts are among more than 220 employers across the country, including Orlando-based Darden Restaurants, that have been granted waivers from a provision in the federal health-care law requiring annual limits on medical coverage to be no lower than $750,000. The minimum will escalate each year until 2014 when coverage limits are to be eliminated entirely for most health plans, effectively abolishing mini-med plans. By that time, workers will be able to qualify for tax credits to help them buy medical insurance.

› Fortegra Lowers IPO Price, Expects Trading to Start Friday [Florida Times-Union]
Fortegra Financial Corp. Thursday lowered the price of its initial public offering of stock and delayed the stock sale for one day, but the company is hoping that trading in the stock will begin on Friday. Jacksonville-based Fortegra had indicated in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing two weeks ago that it planned to sell 7.7 million shares at $14 to $16 each. The final pricing was expected to take place late on Wednesday with trading beginning Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. But Fortegra filed an updated SEC statement Thursday saying it will sell only 6 million shares of stock at $11 each. Trading is now expected to begin Friday morning. Fortegra did not say why the price and volume of the IPO were lowered, but SEC rules prohibit companies from discussing stock information before a sale is complete. David Menlow of IPO Financial Network in Milburn, N.J., said Fortegra was likely under pressure to get the stock sale done this week, before investors and traders take off for the holidays. Otherwise, it would have to wait until the new year. “There’s a gate coming down pretty quickly” to complete the IPO, said Menlow.

› Tervis' Spencer Loses CEO Title [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
Tervis Tumbler Co., one of the region's fastest-growing manufacturing companies, shook up its executive suite this week, asking one of the area's most prominent female chief executives to step down. Laura Spencer, who had led Tervis as president and CEO for the last four years, will stay with the Venice-based drinkware maker, but had been asked by the Tervis board to return to her prior role as chief financial officer. Barry Wolfson, a 61-year-old business consultant and former head of a Georgia-based chemical product manufacturer, Flexible Products Co., was named Tervis' new president and CEO. Wolfson, whose consulting business is based in Sarasota, is no stranger to Tervis -- he has worked closely with the company for the last six years.