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Coffee Talk (Tampa)
Goodbye to the SEC
The corporate parent of Bay Cities Bank has joined another Hillsborough County community bank in going private.
Florida Business BancGroup Inc. filed a notice last month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission terminating the registration of its stock.
A. Bronson Thayer, chairman of Florida Business BancGroup, made the announcement at the Tampa bank's recent annual meeting at the Columbia restaurant in Ybor City.
Under SEC rules, publicly traded companies may discontinue having to file with the commission if they can buy up enough stock and reduce the number of shareholders to below 300.
Florida Business BancGroup counted approximately 275 shareholders when it terminated registration on April 4.
Last November, Valrico Bancorp Inc., owner of Valrico State Bank, went private by cutting the number of shareholders to 243.
Small public companies around the country have taken a similar approach to get out from under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Enron-inspired corporate-governance law that has become the bane of their chief executives and chief financial officers.
SouthTrust loss, LandMark gain
LandMark Bank of Florida is among the first community banks to take advantage of a recent merger to pick up a new place of business.
The 5-year-old Sarasota bank announced last month that it will open a branch where SouthTrust Bank has operated an office on South Tamiami Trail.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp. completed its $14.3 billion purchase of Birmingham, Ala.'s SouthTrust Corp. last fall. Wachovia expects to cut more than 4,000 jobs and close up to 200 offices as it digests SouthTrust.
One of those offices will be converted into LandMark Bank's fourth full-service location. All of the bank's offices are in Sarasota County.
"LandMark Bank is strategically growing outward from our center, covering the broadest possible geography," says Thomas G. Quale, president and chief executive of the unit of LandMark Financial Holding Co., in a news release.
LandMark Bank had $167 million in assets as of Dec. 31 and reported net income of $909,000 for 2004.
Top legal writers
Each year the Burton Foundation honors legal professionals who exhibit outstanding writing skills. It's a program that abhors stilted legalese, says Bill Burton, a New York lawyer and Florida Bar member who founded the nonprofit group in 1999.
So it was a big deal that Dean Darby Dickerson of the Stetson University College of Law and law school alumna Carrie Ann Wozniak won two of the foundation's top awards for 2005.
The foundation chose Dickerson to receive the Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education. It's the top award the group gives to an educator.
Wozniak, a December graduate who works as a staff attorney for Florida Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead, is one of 15 students from 221 law schools chosen to receive a Burton Award for Legal Achievement.
They'll receive the awards June 14 at a dinner program moderated by MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Aiming higher
Tampa attorney Michael Steinberg has filed as a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress. The Social Security benefits lawyer filed April 20 as a District 11 candidate to the U.S. House of Representatives. That's the seat U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, another Democratic Tampa lawyer, will vacate next year in his bid to become Florida's next governor.
Besides Steinberg, Florida Sen. Les Miller Jr., D-Tampa, has filed to replace Davis.
This is the second campaign attempt by Steinberg in recent years. In 2002, Steinberg lost a bid for the seat now held by Republican state Rep. Kevin Ambler, another lawyer from Tampa. Steinberg won 24.68% of the vote at the primary election. At general election, Steinberg won only 38.87% of the vote. Ambler won with 58.42%.
Leave it to Florida
The National Partnership for Women & Families picked the week before Mother's Day to zing our perhaps not-so-fair state.
The partnership gave Florida a grade of D- for the protection that it affords to workers who wish to take parental leave during a pregnancy or after the birth of a child.
"Expecting Better" was the name of the national partnership's state-by-state survey of parental leave laws and regulations. Sounds like we're in bad company.
"This report is a call to action for our lawmakers," says Daniella Levine, executive director of the Human Services Coalition of Dade County, a supporter of the study. "They need to decide if we are OK with a D grade in a state that supposedly espouses stronger families as a priority."
The only thing that kept Florida from flunking is an entitlement for state employees. They may take up to six months of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, according to the study.
The partnership, an advocacy group for balancing work and family in America, didn't sample leave policies at individual employers.
Liberal parental leave may or may help Florida attract new high-wage industry. But if it ever comes down to the generosity of leave policies, at least our corporate recruiters can say Florida is better than some of the neighbors.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas were among the states that whiffed and got Fs in the partnership study.
California received the highest grade, an A-.
Bruce Nissen, director of the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University in Miami, doesn't see much improvement coming in his state.
"Florida tends to have few labor market regulations to aid working people," says Nissen. "That fits the dominant philosophy in Tallahassee, which is none too friendly to labor."
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