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Around the State
The Kiplinger Florida Business Letter folded in December after 40 years of financial coverage and predictions. The 9,700-circulation Florida monthly didn't grow as anticipated, according to the publication's owners. The national edition of Kiplinger's will continue.
Seven Florida chambers of commerce united in November to form the Florida Association of African-American Chambers of Commerce. The association serves Central Florida, Miami-Dade, Tallahassee, Pompano Beach, Riviera Beach, Jacksonville, and Volusia and Flagler counties.
Great Western announced it will cut 105 jobs at its mortgage lending offices throughout Florida. The move is part of its bid to make more money from its mortgage business. The company is cutting 800 jobs nationwide.
As part of efforts to streamline the tax return process, businesses that collect $50,000 or more annually in sales tax will file through the Electronic Data Interchange system, the Department of Revenue (DOR) announced. Advantages of the system are same-day confirmations of tax return receipt, fewer possible filing and processing mistakes, and increased revenues to the state from interest on taxes deposited quicker.
Northwest
Westinghouse's plan to separate its $5 billion-a-year industrial operations from its broadcasting business is not expected to alter the company's plan to close the 650-employee electrical generator manufacturing plant in Pensacola. Escambia-Santa Rosa's 14th largest employer, it will begin cutbacks this year and will close in 1998.
Pensacola-based network paging company A+ Network merged with Metrocall of Alexandria, Va., creating the fourth-largest network paging company in the country, the southeast's second largest. Less than 50 jobs will be cut over the next two years as a result of the merger.
Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo TerraTech acquired privately held Carlan Consulting Group in November for an undisclosed sum. Carlan, which supplies transportation and environmental consulting, employs 75 in Pensacola and Tampa, whose job futures are uncertain.
Northeast
Jacksonville-based Barnett Banks announced a two-year rollout of full-service offices in Publix Supermarkets throughout Florida. Barnett hopes to have most of its Publix offices installed by 1998. Barnett customers will get free use of Publix's proprietary ATM network.
Saying it had outgrown its Jacksonville facility, Pepsi announced plans for a $5 million expansion of its bottling and warehouse plant. The expansion won't immediately create any additional jobs.
Jacksonville-based staffing and consulting services company AccuStaff acquired software consulting company Blackstone Group of Nebraska and staffing services company MCSS Ltd. of San Francisco. AccuStaff also merged with Career Horizons Inc. of Long Island, N.Y. The combined transactions are estimated to be worth more than $1 billion and eventually will create jobs as consolidations and responsibilities are moved to the Jacksonville headquarters.
Physician Sales & Service signed merger agreements with X-Ray Corp. of Georgia and Chesapeake X-Ray Corp. of Virginia in November. The deals are worth a combined $95 million in additional revenues and position the company as a leader of X-ray supplies and equipment in the southeast.
Tech Packaging of Jacksonville will build a new $2.5 million headquarters and add 20 to 30 jobs in April.
Kenroy International of Memphis, Tennessee, announced it will close its Jacksonville distribution warehouse and move about 30 warehouse and distribution jobs to a Mississippi facility.
Central
Construction and industrial materials distributor Hughes Supply of Orlando signed a letter of intent to acquire the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Metals Group for an undisclosed amount of Hughes common stock. Metals Group employs 105 people; no layoffs are expected. WenSouth Orlando Ltd. bought 46 Wendy's restaurants in North Florida and three other states in November to become the nation's tenth-largest Wendy's franchise.
Two new hotels are being planned for downtown Orlando. Grand Theme Hotels, which built Castle Hotel, plans another with 140- to 170-rooms. A sister hotel will be built adjacent to the 891-room Peabody Orlando Hotel.
Georgia-based ExecuTrain Corp. bought ETF Technologies of Orlando for an estimated $10 million.
Northrop Grumman says it will move its Orlando electronics division to Baltimore this month. It will lay off about 30 employees and not renew 40 subcontracting jobs.
Eckler Industries of Titusville, a Chevrolet Corvette parts supplier, agreed to merge with Smart Choice Holdings of Orlando. The companies will swap 6.5 million shares as part of the deal.
Tampa Bay
Tampa-based System One Technical, a 10-year-old staffing company with eight offices around the country, merged with The Byrnes Group, a Pennsylvania-based staffing company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As part of an anti-trust agreement stemming from its recent purchase of Clearwater-based Eckerd Corp., JCPenney will sell 161 of its Rite-Aid and Kerr drug stores in the Carolinas. The November acquisition created the second largest drug store chain in the country.
TECO Energy agreed to purchase Lykes Energy of Tampa for $300 million in stock. The transaction is part of Tampa-based TECO's expansion efforts in the natural gas industry. Lykes also sold its meat subsidiary for $37.3 million to Smithfield Foods of Norfolk, Va. No layoffs are expected.
An investor group led by CKE Restaurants of Anaheim, Calif., which controls the Rally's fast-food chain, agreed to restructure Clearwater-based Checkers' debt in exchange for warrants to buy up to 20 million shares, or 17%, of common stock for 75 cents a share over the next six years.
Aerial Communications, one of the nation's largest independent carriers of the latest communications technology, Personal Communications Services, which allows voice, data and video transmissions via the cellular phone, opened an operations center in Tampa and plans to hire about 400 employees.
St. Petersburg-based Equifax Payment Services completed its acquisition of the card services division of CUNA Service Group of Madison, Wisc. for an undisclosed sum. Equifax now handles processing services for 17 million cardholders and 5,000 financial institutions.
Square D will shut down its Clearwater transformer manufacturing plant this month and eliminate 99 jobs. The closing is part of the Chicago-based company's new focus on core technologies.
Bobby Byrd Real Estate of Clearwater, one of Pinellas County's largest independent real estate firms, was bought by Coldwell Banker of Mission Viejo, Calif., for an undisclosed sum. Coldwell, the nation's largest real estate brokerage firm, will gain Byrd's six Pinellas County offices and 240 associates. Electric power company Entergy Corp. of New Orleans bought Clearwater-based Sentry Alarm Systems of America for $41 million. Sentry will continue to operate under its current name and no layoffs are expected. The acquisition is part of Entergy's efforts to diversify its core business.
Accounting firms McNulty & Company and Garcia & Ortiz will merge to create one of the bay area's largest independent accounting firms. The new firm, McNulty, Garcia & Ortiz, P.A., will employ 55, including 24 certified public accountants, and have offices in Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Treasure Coast
Kennedy Space Center is teaming with two private companies, Precision Fabrication and Cleaning Co. of Cocoa and EG&G Florida, to manufacture a liquid-air mixing unit for commercial use. Kennedy Space Center is also teaming up with Mainstream Engineering of Rockledge to develop a water recycling technology for washing machines.
LRP Publications announced it will move its Pennsylvania headquarters to Palm Beach in early 1997. The company, which was promised more than $600,000 in incentives from the county and state, will hire 110 workers and employ about 500.
Paxson Communications of West Palm Beach agreed to purchase Washington, D.C., station WVVI TV-66 for $30 million. Paxson is the nation's largest owner and operator of broadcast television stations.
SYSCO will build a 260,000-square-foot foodservice distribution center in Palm Beach County. The company plans to hire 325 employees initially and will receive $490,000 in county job growth incentive funds.
Florida Gaming Corp. of Fort Pierce announced it will acquire World Jai-Alai for an undisclosed sum of money. The acquisition makes Florida Gaming the largest poker room operator in Florida and the largest jai-alai operator in the world.
South Bay-based Biocomp Technologies, a maker of fiber-plastic pellets and parts, will merge with Helo Plastics, a Jensen Beach tool and die company. The new company will be based in South Bay.
Southwest
American Bast Fibers of Naples will renovate and expand a facility east of Belle Glade to process bast fiber; it will employ 5,000 by the year 2000.
Cape Coral-based holding company West Coast Bancorp announced plans to merge with F.N.B. Corp. of Pennsylvania. The merger is valued at about $31 million. With 20% of the deposit market, the bank will be the largest community bank in Cape Coral.
With almost 30 per 1,000 residents, Naples led the nation in new housing permits, issued from October 1995 to September 1996. according to a U.S. Housing Markets study.
Homestyle Harmony of Sarasota acquired Catalyst Communications in November and says it expects to earn revenues in the several hundred million dollar range as part of a nationwide launch of its telephone card services.
Southeast
Miami-based Perfumania [FT, Oct. 1996] agreed to acquired most of the assets of Nature's Elements Holding Corporation. As part of the deal, Perfumania will get 34 Nature's Elements stores located throughout the Northeast.
Fort Lauderdale-based medical records management firm Deliverex was acquired for an undisclosed amount by Iron Mountain, the state's largest records management company. It is the company's sixth acquisition in Florida in the last year.
Delray Beach-based Sunbeam Corp. will cut its 12,000 people work force in half, reduce from 53 to 14 the number of Sunbeam facilities and cut to 24 from 61 the number of warehouses it operates. The measures are part of the company's divestiture and cost-saving strategy initiated since Al Dunlop took over as chief executive [FT, Sept. 1996].
Miami-based Greenberg Traurig lost its 11-year-old contract to represent the state's Board of Administration after it joined the fight against the state's billion-dollar anti-tobacco lawsuit [FT, Oct. 1996]. The state, which had cited the law firm's conflict of interest, gave the contract back to Greenberg Traurig after the law firm announced it would no longer represent the Tobacco Institute.
Rubin Barney & Birger, Florida's largest public relations firm, has merged with the 30-year-old firm David Pearson Associates. It becomes a separate division of Rubin Barney in Coral Gables called the Pearson Group at RBB.
