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Around the State
The Department of Commerce reports that Florida's gross state product for 1995 was $338.3 billion, a 7.6% increase from the revised 1994 total of $314.5 billion. The revised total for 1993 was $291.1 billion.
Attorney General Bob Butterworth charged the Burdines department store chain with deceptive advertising by marketing furniture at bogus discount prices. The civil complaint filed against Burdines and its parent company, Federated Department Stores, seeks damages and penalties of $10,000 per violation of the state's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The cost per credit hour at state universities will rise 7% this fall, about $80 yearly, increasing average annual tuition for an in-state student to about $1,800.
New York City retailer Saks Fifth Avenue plans to open three new stores this fall, bringing its state total to ten. In Fort Myers and Sarasota, look for 40,000-square-foot "resort stores"; in Orlando a 101,000-square-foot location will open in early November. The company is also pursuing plans for a store in Tampa.
Florida extended its ban on widespread homeowners insurance cancellations through 1999. The moratorium, imposed after Hurricane Andrew, would have expired in November. It allows insurers to cancel annually up to 5% of their business statewide, but not more than 10% in any one county. The new bill signed by Gov. Chiles extends the ban to condominium associations.
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Northwest
Alabama-based Regions Bank has signed an agreement to acquire First Florida Bank, based in Panama City. The $40 million deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, subject to stockholder and regulatory approvals. Florida First Bank has six offices in Panama City as well as two in Hernando and one in Citrus counties. Regions Bank operates 355 offices in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Florida, including branches in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
Reduced cargo tonnage at the Port of Pensacola will substantially lower expected revenues for fiscal year 1996 and require an increase of approximately $400,000 in the city's $1 million subsidy of the port. Explaining the situation, the city cites a severe downturn in the export of bagged agricultural goods and competition from Gulf Coast ports that offer significantly lower rates than Pensacola.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc., of Arlington, Texas, opened an office in Pensacola and anticipates home sales there by the fourth quarter. The company builds homes mostly for first-time and move-up buyers. The Florida Association of Realtors reports that single-family, existing home sales in Pensacola increased 29% in April and 31% in May, compared to figures from last year.
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Northeast
Within a four-week period, Jacksonville's AccuStaff, a national provider of temporary help and outsourcing services, acquired five companies: TempsAmerica East, New York City; Project Professionals, a California company offering legal temporaries; Vienna, Va.-based Logue & Rice, accounting and information-technology personnel; Openware Technologies, a Jacksonville consulting firm and software developer; and the McKinley Group, Front Royal, Va., a provider of technical support personnel for computer systems.
By the middle of next year, State Farm Insurance will have cut its nearly 950-person Jacksonville work force by almost 25%. One hundred twenty-three jobs are going to Winter Haven and another 100 either Atlanta or Rock Hill, S.C.
Physician Sales & Service, a distributor of medical supplies, equipment and pharmaceuticals, has an agreement to acquire Crocker-Fels, which is based in Cincinnati and serves eight states from six distribution centers. The stock-for-asset merger is subject to antitrust review.
Snake Eyes Golf Clubs has expanded its Ponte Vedra Beach operations and has opened an office in Brussels, Belgium, thanks to $6 million in private funding from an unnamed source. The private placement doesn't change the golf club maker's goal of going public. The firm plans to expand its product line from wedges, putters and a driver to a full set of clubs.
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Central
AT&T is eliminating 105 jobs in Central Florida, mostly clerical or accounting, as part of a restructuring announced earlier this year.
The U.S. Air Force has chosen Lockheed Martin Corp. to compete against McDonnell Douglas Corp. for a new cruise missile contract potentially worth $3 billion. The companies have two years to develop prototypes. Initially about 50 to 70 jobs at Lockheed Martin Electronics & Missiles will be created in Orlando, where Lockheed could employ hundreds if it wins the contract.
Software developer HTE is consolidating two out-of-state facilities and one local operation in a new 80,000-square-foot site in Heathrow, north of Orlando. The expansion, an $11.9 million investment, is bringing 210 new jobs to the area, doubling the company's local work force.
Opened in July, Daytona USA is a $20 million interactive motorsports attraction housed in a 50,000-square-foot facility that offers racing exhibits, interactive computer displays, a Sega entertainment center, two movie theaters and racing memorabilia. Another new diversion in Daytona Beach is SpeedZone Motorsports Thrill Park, "the world's most sophisticated go-kart park."
The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority has completed a 10-year hangar lease with SabreTech, a Phoenix-based airline maintenance company that will bring 500 jobs to Orlando over the next five years. The deal includes a job-creation guarantee. Separately, AirTran Airways signed a long-term financial commitment with the aviation authority to lease up to 10 terminal gates and pay for improvements to baggage handling systems and ticket counters.
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Tampa Bay
A major reorganization planned by Florida Power Corp. will move jobs to Central Florida by year's end. In anticipation of electricity deregulation, the St. Petersburg-based utility is creating three business groups: energy solutions, energy delivery and energy supply. An estimated 150 engineers and technicians working in St. Petersburg will be assigned to the energy-delivery unit near Orlando. Also, the utility's parent company, Florida Progress Corp., will spin off its aircraft leasing and real estate operations as the company seeks to focus on its core energy business.
Tel-Save Holdings of New Hope, Pa., has opened its first Florida office, a retail marketing division in Palm Harbor, and plans to hire 300 people by summer's end. Publicly traded Tel-Save provides long-distance and 800 telephone services to more than 200,000 small and medium-size business.
A group of Texas-based venture capitalists, including former advisers to billionaire Robert M. Bass, is buying AT&T Paradyne for $175 million and plans to resell it through a public offering as early as 1998. Work force reductions and other cost-cutting are probable for the Largo-based maker of modems.
Florida Retired Persons Pharmacy, a mail-order house, is relocating from Pinellas Park to one of the company's larger distribution facilities just outside Philadelphia, leaving 105 workers unemployed in the Tampa Bay area.
Three Outback Steakhouse executives, COO Bob Basham, CFO Bob Merritt and CEO Chris Sullivan, have teamed up to plan a private, invitation-only golf course in northwest Hillsborough County. It would open in fall 1997. Florida Crushed Stone Co., based in Leesburg, has broken ground on an $84 million expansion of its Brooksville cement plant. Scheduled to be online in mid 1997, the new facility will double production and add 30 new jobs in Hernando County.
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Southwest
The U.S. Department of Commerce granted foreign trade zone status to Southwest Florida International Airport and Page Field in Fort Myers.
Florida Family Mutual, an insurance company based in Naples, will take over as many as 50,000 homeowners policies from Florida's property insurer of last resort, the Joint Underwriting Association, under a state incentive plan to cut the number of JUA insurance policies.
Checkpoint Ltd., a security and monitoring firm with headquarters in Naples, has expanded again with the addition of three Orlando companies, bringing to 16 the number of security firms Checkpoint has acquired in the last three years.
Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA reached an agreement to acquire Gulfcoast Homes of Fort Myers.
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Treasure Coast
A subsidiary of MBIA Inc., the nation's leading financial guarantor, has acquired a 50% equity interest in Capital Asset Research Corp., West Palm Beach, the nation's largest purchaser of municipal real estate tax lien certificates (FT, May 1996). MBIA Inc., located in Armonk, N.Y., is publicly owned and the holding company of MBIA Insurance Corp., an insurer of municipal bonds. Separately, Capital Asset Research was awarded a contract by New York City to co-service its $215 million tax lien securitization placement program.
Jack Nicklaus plans to sell a stake in his golfing services and products company through a $27 million initial public offering. Golden Bear Golf of North Palm Beach filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission to sell 1.8 million shares at an estimated $15 each.
Catalfumo Construction & Development relocated its headquarters from West Palm Beach to a new 18,000-square-foot, two-story building in Palm Beach Gardens, almost twice the size of its old facility.
Two Florida businesses have signed a joint venture agreement creating the nation's largest health care professional temporary staffing company. Cross Country Staffing in Boca Raton and Medical Recruiters of America in Fort Lauderdale will have annual sales of more than $115 million.
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Southeast
Fort Lauderdale-based Harris Computer Systems Corp. sold its Real-Time Systems Division to competitor Concurrent Corp., which will relocate from New Jersey to South Florida. Harris Computer also announced it is changing its name to CyberGuard Corp. to emphasize its products that protect computer data.
The Ultimate Software Group, based in Fort Lauderdale, has obtained $10 million in equity financing from an investor group that includes J.P. Morgan, the global banking firm with assets of $185 billion. Ultimate, a provider of payroll and human resource management software systems to medium-size companies, is six years old and employs more than 200.
Heico Corp. agreed to sell its Miami, Florida-based MediTek subsidiary to U.S. Diagnostic Labs for $23 million. MediTek and USDL, located in West Palm Beach, are providers of medical diagnostic imaging services. Heico intends to focus on its aerospace business.
Republic Industries Inc. has agreed to pay approximately $5 billion in stock to buy ADT Ltd., an auto auction and electronic security company. Republic was an obscure garbage hauler with $48 million in annual revenue when Fort Lauderdale sports and entertainment mogul H. Wayne Huizenga took control of it last year. Since then, Republic has made more than 50 acquisitions in the garbage hauling, used car and electronic security businesses. Republic should have 1996 revenues of more than $2 billion, about three-fourths of which will come from ADT's businesses. The deal still requires stockholder and regulatory approvals.
