SHARE:
Around the State
Team Rental Group Inc., the largest franchisee of Budget Rent A Car, bought Budget from Ford Motor Co. for $350 million. Ford will continue to supply cars and trucks to Budget.
Lake Mary
Recoton Corp., a consumer electronics firm, has announced it is seeking to acquire Tambalan Limited, of Farnworth-Bolton, England, which makes stereo headphones and electronic accessories under the Ross Consumer Products name.
Lakeland
Publix Super Markets, the nation's largest employee-owned company, agreed to an $81.5 million settlement of a 1995 class-action gender discrimination case filed against Publix.
A West Chester, Pa., firm developed a machine in a Lakeland warehouse that converts styrofoam into plastic flakes that can be melted to make anything plastic. The machine was developed and patented by a Lakeland man, Lawrence Moore, who died five years ago. His son, L. Steven Moore, heads up Resource Recovery Technologies, which is marketing it.
Melbourne
Medical Resources of Hackensack, N.J. acquired South Brevard Imaging Center for $1.1 million in cash. Medical Resources operates 13 imaging and diagnostic centers in Florida and 40 nationwide.
Orlando
Sears, Roebuck and Co. has agreed to purchase privately held All America Termite and Pest Control, the country's third largest termite and pest control business. All America has annual revenues in excess of $100 million and has operated as a licensee of Sears since 1982.
General Medical Corp. of Richmond, Va., opened a 140,000-sq.-ft. warehouse and signed a five-year $100 million contract to provide medical and surgical supplies to the Orlando Regional Healthcare System's six central Florida hospitals. General Medical is the nation's leading distributor of medical supplies, equipment and services to the integrated healthcare market.
The central Florida region leads the nation in the rate of organ donation, according to TransLife, an organ- and tissue-procurement agency affiliated with Florida Hospital Orlando.
Construction Company American Bridge Co., with offices in Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, has centralized its international commercial facilities group in Orlando, increasing staff from four to 50.
Workers at the Pine Street building owned by Orange County have received a total of nearly $1 million for medical claims for illnesses resulting from on-site air quality problems. The county has abandoned most of the building.
Poinciana
Construction is underway on a $4.5 million Jeld-Wen manufacturing plant that will distribute custom doors, windows and millwork products throughout Florida and south Georgia. Jeld-Wen is a major supplier for Georgia Pacific and Tee Pee Distributing. The plant will initially employ around 100 when it is completed early this summer.
Sanford
Florida Solar, central Florida's largest solar pool-heating sales and service company, and Mirasol Fafco Solar, based in Sarasota, have agreed to merge. Annual sales for 1997 are projected at more than $10 million.
NEWSPAPERS AND CABLE
Local T.V. News ...
... will get a different look this fall when the Orlando Sentinel launches a 24-hour local news channel on Time Warner's cable system. The channel - a 50-50 joint venture between the cable operator and the newspaper - will go to 400,000 Time Warner subscribers and will use a "news wheel" format of local news, sports and weather reports from the Sentinel staff. The channel, not yet named, will hire about 70 news employees, including video journalists, but the Sentinel's 350 news staffers also will contribute stories, features and commentary, according to Sentinel editor John Haile.
The channel will initially be available to subscribers in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties as well as to a majority of Time Warner customers in Brevard, according to Diane Pickett, a Time Warner spokeswoman. The channel will be part of the cable operator's "preferred" package, which is the most popular among customers. Neither company would say how much it is investing in the venture or how soon they expected it to be profitable. The Orlando Sentinel is owned by the Tribune Co., which also operates a 24-hour local news operation, CLTV (Chicagoland TV), in Illinois.
The venture is the state's second 24-hour local cable news show involving a newspaper-cable partnership. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, a New York Times company, has been operating a 24-hour cable news channel (SNN) out of its print newsroom for more than a year in a partnership with Comcast.
Business Beat - Week of May 10th
