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Northeast Fla., Jacksonville Business Briefs - Sept. 2008
JACKSONVILLE
Dissident shareholders won four seats on CSX’s board of directors. But the proxy fight between the railroad company’s management and shareholders Children’s Investment Fund and 3G Capital Partners isn’t over. CSX has filed a federal lawsuit arguing that CIF and 3G shouldn’t have been allowed to vote all their shares.
» Michigan-based Schafer Development bought the old Jacksonville Raceway off Interstate 95 and plans a 1.5 million-sq.-ft. industrial park where the former owners, Lennar Homes and GMAC, had planned a residential development.
» Deutsche Bank is opening a financial operations center in Jacksonville. The center, to house operational and support teams for the bank’s investment banking operations group, is expected to employ 400 by year’s end and 1,000 by the end of 2011.
» EverBank Financial Corp. has received an investment of approximately $100 million from an affiliate of Sageview Capital LP, a private investment firm, to support growth in EverBank’s banking and mortgage business lines.
LEVY COUNTY
Florida’s Public Service Commission approved Progress Energy’s request for two new nuclear plants in southern Levy County, about 10 miles north of Crystal River. Progress still needs approval from environmental regulators and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
OCALA
New York-based private equity group American Industrial Partners acquired Marion County’s largest private company, E-One, from Federal Signal for approximately $20 million. E-One’s managers, including CEO Peter Guile, are staying on. Guile and others became significant shareholders in partnership with AIP.
» A circuit judge ruled that south Florida developer Jorge Gutman and his company, JJH Investments, must pay Ocala more than $1.6 million for a loan and $1.4 million on a mortgage note on the downtown property where Gutman promised to build City Shops & Walk, a 40,000-sq.-ft. residential, retail and restaurant complex. The site, directly across from city hall, remains an eyesore; locals have dubbed it “the sandbox.” The city will have a chance to buy the property back when it goes into foreclosure.
PALATKA
City crews demolished a seven-story, 100-unit public housing complex that has looked over the St. Johns River at the corner of Memorial Parkway and St. Johns Avenue for 32 years. The site will become the first project in Palatka’s ambitious downtown/riverfront redevelopment plan.
