Texas Pacific Group / Burger King
HIGH SPIRITS
Burger King's franchisees certainly didn't have it their way with Diageo, the U.K.-based spirits company. With BK store revenues falling in recent years, they've complained of anemic support. That's why they rejoiced in July when Diageo sold BK for $2.26 billion to Texas Pacific Group and other investors, including Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital, owner of Domino's Pizza. "Very happy, grateful, the end of a long journey," says Julian E. Josephson, a BK franchisee and chairman of franchisee group the National Franchisee Association.
Texas Pacific plans to keep Burger King CEO John Dasburg, who arrived last year from Northwest Airlines. Franchisees have been encouraged by sales under Dasburg, the eighth CEO in 13 years. BK's new owners also plan to keep the headquarters in Miami, where partners James McLamore and David Edgerton founded the chain in 1954.
Group 4 Falck / Wackenhut
PROVIDING SOME SECURITY
Group 4 Falck's $573-million acquisition in May of Palm Beach Gardens-based Wackenhut for $33 per share marked the end of founder George Wackenhut's remarkable run at the helm of his namesake company. An ex-FBI agent who founded a small investigation company in 1954, he built Wackenhut into an international concern with 68,000 employees and $2.8 billion in revenues in 2001.
Group 4, the Denmark company that's the second-largest in its field in the world behind Sweden's Securitas, employs 140,000 worldwide and has kept Wackenhut employment steady. It plans to sell its 57% interest in prison-operator Wackenhut Corrections and Wackenhut's employee staffing unit for $250 million.
Wackenhut, 82, made at least $124 million in the sale. His son and company chief executive, Richard, who became a consultant, turned at least $31 million.
Intersil / Elantec Semiconductor
'PRETTY BUSY'
Semiconductor company Intersil in Palm Bay has been through plenty of dealing since its spinoff from Harris in Melbourne in 1999 and an initial public offering in 2000. The company, with 2,400 employees -- 1,400 in Palm Bay -- unloaded some units, bought a few, formed strategic alliances and in May closed on one of the biggest deals of 2002 by a Florida company: The $1.2-billion purchase in stock and cash of California-based Elantec Semiconductor. "It's been pretty busy," says Intersil spokesman Brent Dietz.
Elantec's a leader in components for CD and DVD burners and in flat panel displays; Intersil's a leader in power management and wireless networking. Combined, the two had a $48.8-million profit on $576 million in sales in 2001.
Intersil's headquarters -- 15 to 20 executives and their support staff -- is in California, but Dietz says there's no plan to move anything there. "We'll continue to grow here in Florida," he says.
Levitt Cos. / Bluegreen
BankAtlantic Bancorp / Gruntal & Co.
BankAtlantic / Community Savings
DEAL-MAKING IN TOUGH TIMES
Merger and acquisition activity has slowed, but BankAtlantic Bancorp's Alan Levan hasn't. One subsidiary of the Fort Lauderdale-based holding company that Levan chairs, Levitt Cos. (of Levittown and St. Lucie West fame), bought a 40% stake in Boca Raton developer Bluegreen Corp. for $57 million in April. Levan became chairman of the publicly traded Bluegreen. The same month, BankAtlantic Bancorp also acquired the assets of investment firm Gruntal & Co. to add to its Ryan, Beck & Co. subsidiary. And the holding company's namesake financial institution, BankAtlantic, bulked up in March with the $170-million cash purchase of North Palm Beach-based Community Savings.
Levan says BankAtlantic is well-capitalized in case other acquisition opportunities come along.
Carnival /Royal Caribbean / P&O Princess
THE LOVE BOAT TRIANGLE
Next time, Micky Arison and Richard Fain might want to grab cutlasses and settle things the old-fashioned, seafaring way, with 24-pounders blazing from the gunports.
Arison's Carnival, the No. 1 cruise line, and Fain's Royal Caribbean, No. 2, both based in Miami, began battling last year over No. 3, London-based P&O Princess Cruises. Royal negotiated a friendly $3.7-billion deal. Carnival turned hostile with a $5.3-billion counteroffer. Then came the lawyers, antitrust regulators and consumer groups, a marathon shareholders meeting and Carnival complaints that Royal was slandering it and mongering fear among Princess shareholders.
Going into the battle, Carnival was not only the biggest cruise line but the most profitable; Royal was second and more leveraged. With Princess no longer a free-standing competitor, the Big Four becomes the Big Three. (Look for someone to be interested in acquiring Star and its Star, Norwegian, Orient lines.)
When the spray settles, count on Arison and Fain to turn their attention to a common rival: Landlubber competitors. Despite years of heavy marketing by the cruise lines, only 13% of the American public has ever taken a cruise.
"Yes, they see each other as competitors, but the people they see even more so are land-based resorts," says Joe Hovorka, Raymond James cruise industry analyst. "They still want to grow the pie."
FPL / Seabrook
A NUKE IN ITS PORTFOLIO
Seabrook in New Hampshire stands as an emblem of the development of nuclear power in America. Enviros were thwarted in their goal of a nuke-free coast but rejoiced in the 4,000-plus arrests of Clamshell Alliance protesters and the 18 years it took the plant to slog through construction, the courts and politics before coming online in 1990. Those years, the consequent bankruptcy filing of developer Public Service of New Hampshire (and overcapacity) provide ample evidence as to why Seabrook was one of the last nuclear plants constructed.
To FPL, the Juno Beach-based utility, however, Seabrook and its 1,161 megawatts represent no more than a substantial boost to its unregulated generation portfolio, which now stands at 5,063 megawatts nationwide. (In Florida, where FPL is regulated, it generates 17,860 megawatts, a megawatt being enough to power 1,000 homes.)
With Seabrook's owner-utilities forced to sell their interests in the plant as part of deregulation, FPL won the bidding with an $837-million offer for an 88% share. FPL expects to close on the purchase late this year. Along with the plant, FPL is buying the unfinished second reactor at Seabrook.
In recent years, given nuclear's success abroad and the environmental damage from fossil fuels, some polling indicates people are willing to consider more nukes. Federal authorities have revamped regulations to cut the time it takes to develop a nuclear plant to an economically viable level. "We need a demonstration in the United States that the new licensing system is as effective as it is in Japan, France and Korea," says Bertram Wolfe, a nuclear power advocate in California. FPL spokeswoman Rachel Scott says, however, that FPL has no plans to finish the second Seabrook reactor.
ALSO DEALING
Texas-based Newmark Homes Corp., a unit of Greek construction and home building group Technical Olympic, in April sold south Florida home builder Westbrooke Homes to Standard Pacific Corp. for $41 million. In 2000 it acquired Engle Homes, a Boca Raton-based builder, in a tender offer.
Miami-based Lennar Corp. in July acquired Baltimore home builder B. Andrews & Co. for an undisclosed amount and completed a tender offer for McLean, Va.-based The Fortress Group, a regional builder in California, Arizona and Texas.
Jacksonville-based developer St. Joe Co. sold its Clearwater-based Arvida Realty Sales brokerage outfit in April for $170 million to Cendant's NRT Inc.
M&M Aerospace Hardware, a Miami after-market distributor of aerospace fasteners, was acquired in September by Wellington-based BE Aerospace for $200 million.
Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial BancGroup in May agreed to acquire Palm Beach National Holding Co. and its Palm Beach National Bank & Trust for $105.5 million in stock.
Advance Auto Parts of Roanoke, Va., in November acquired Lakeland's Discount Auto Parts in a reverse merger. The deal was reportedly valued at $477 million. With the purchase, Advance has approximately 2,400 stores.