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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana)
Saunders donates $100,00O to USF's Sarasota-Manatee campus
Michael Saunders, the head of the well-known Sarasota-based real estate firm that bears her name, is donating $100,000 to the University of South Florida's Sarasota-Manatee campus.
The donation is for technology and overall enhancements for the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus center, a 100,000 square-foot facility that is designed to hold a wide-range of campus needs, including classrooms, computer labs, a childcare center and faculty and staff offices.
Saunders said her gift is a boost for a school that helps develop the area's workforce and economic development. The Michael Saunders Plaza will be named in honor of the gift.
USF will receive a matching $100,000 from the Florida Division of Colleges and Universities through a grant for new construction projects. The center has received more than $5.2 million in donations so far, including state-matching funds.
First Watch continues aggressive growth
First Watch Restaurants Inc. has beefed up its management team with three newly created positions in an effort to support its aggressive growth strategy.
The Bradenton-based restaurant named David Lynch regional vice president of Florida; Rod Hennig, regional vice president of Kansas and Missouri; and Paul Pendery - the brother of First Watch Owner Ken Pendery - regional vice president of Ohio, Kentucky and California. The restaurant, which was founded in 1983, has added between two to six locations a year, according to First Watch spokesperson Helen King Knight. First Watch has 53 restaurants in nine states and plans to open an additional 20 restaurants by the end of 2006.
The company continues to expand in Florida. It opened a 3,500 square-foot restaurant in Bonita Springs in the North Bay Village Sept. 19 and it plans to open a restaurant in Bradenton, at 7118 Cortez Road, in December.
Lynch, who will be based in the Sarasota/Bradenton area, previously served as an operations manager, a regional manager and a general manager of several First Watch restaurants. Lynch had 20 years of restaurant experience when he came to First Watch in 1995.
Sanibel resorts for sale in a "seller's market"
Meristar Hospitality Corp., a publicly traded real estate investment trust in Northern Virginia, has five properties for sale on Sanibel Island in Lee County. But the famed South Seas Resort on nearby Captiva Island is not among them.
Instead, the company told analysts recently it plans to sell its smaller resorts, including the Best Western Sanibel Island, Sanibel Inn, Seaside Inn, Song of the Sea, Sundial Beach Resort and The Dunes Golf and Tennis Club.
"We believe this is a seller's market," Paul Whetsell, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, told analysts at a recent conference. "We think we can take advantage of that." The company plans to sell the smaller Sanibel properties and other hotels to pay down debt, though it didn't identify potential buyers.
"We're well into this at this stage," Whetsell said, noting that he expects sales to be completed by the first quarter of next year.
Meanwhile, the South Seas Resort is undergoing a $140-million renovation and will be open by the start of the New Year.
Confusion from our bank rankings
Well, we know the bankers are reading our annual banking edition. We heard from them.
They noticed quickly that we inadvertently published the wrong table ranking banks' return on equity. The correct table is published below.
That's not all. There were other glitches; and we should have provided more disclaimers and explanations than we did with some of our tables measuring banks' performance. Let's address them:
S Corporations - Bankers know this well. And we knew it, too, but we shouldn't have assumed everyone else knew it. Most banks are organized as C corporations, which are taxed quite differently from S corporations. This always distorts bank rankings. Because S corporations don't pay corporate taxes - their income flows directly to shareholders - S-corporation banks often show significantly higher returns on equity, returns on assets and other measurements involving net income. In other words, they often look better than they are vis-à-vis C-corporation banks.
We should have spelled that out more clearly.
Efficiency ratio, loss allowance to loans, noncurrent loans to loans - Our tables were in reverse order, and we should have stated that. They listed the 20 least efficient banks and the 20 banks with highest percentages of bad loans. Those distinctions should have been made as well. So which Gulf Coast banks are the most efficient? The top five for year-to-date 2005 are Florida Community Bank, Immokalee; First Community Bank of Southwest Florida, Fort Myers; First Florida Bank, Naples; Raymond James Bank, St. Petersburg and Bay Financial Savings Bank, Tampa.
Banks 2005 2004 % change
1. Community National Bank of Sarasota County* 33.30% 27.06% 23.1%
2. Charlotte State Bank* 32.94% 21.77% 51.3%
3. First Community Bank of Southwest Florida 27.52% 15.55% 77.0%
4. Florida Community Bank 27.15% 23.10% 17.5%
5. Platinum Bank* 21.74% 17.49% 24.3%
6. Century Bank, a Federal Savings Bank" 21.43% 17.76% 20.7%
7. First Home Bank* 20.92% 25.23% -17.1%
8. Community Bank of Naples, NA" 20.27% 20.45% -0.9%
9. Orion Bank 18.65% 17.77% 5.0%
10. Peninsula Bank 16.44% 15.47% 6.3%
11. First Florida Bank 16.40% 12.08% 35.8%
12. Flagship National Bank* 15.64% 10.97% 42.6%
13. First National Bank of Pasco 15.39% 14.01% 9.9%
14. Sanibel Captiva Community Bank 15.37% 9.29% 65.4%
15. Heritage Bank of Florida 15.18% 10.66% 42.4%
16. Valrico State Bank 15.11% 15.26% -1.0%
17. Horizon Bank 14.95% 9.50% 57.4%
18. The Bank of Commerce 14.90% 9.37% 59.0%
19. 1st National Bank & Trust 14.17% 11.90% 19.1%
20. Bank of Naples* 14.09% 13.61% 3.5%
*= S Corp. bank
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