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Coffee Talk (Tampa)
Life in Hurricane Alley
Experts have compared our troubled times to the early 1970s, when inflation and pricier petroleum ushered in a decade of anemic economic growth.
Pinellas Park banking analyst Richard X. Bove sees a more instructive parallel for Florida: the 1920s.
"The Florida housing boom may be over as it was in the mid-20s," Bove writes this month, "when a number of vicious storms hit the southern part of the state."
Knock on wood, the Tampa Bay area will have withstood another deadly Atlantic hurricane season, relatively intact, by the end of November.
But the reward for Bay area homeowners will be much higher property insurance premiums, if their policies aren't cancelled outright. There is also the potential for significant increases in the cost of home improvement materials, residential mortgages and supporting Florida government.
Bove says Florida bankers have confessed worry to him about the future of the state's still-sizzling housing market. "The hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 have changed the economics of living in the state," he writes.
The lenders aren't sure there will be anybody left to write homeowner's insurance after the expiration of various state attempts to impose a moratorium on policy cancellations.
That means bankers may have to get more involved in the insurance business, if they want to protect their collateral while continuing to accept mortgage applications.
Bove reports an ominous trend among the Florida gentry.
Those who aren't heading for the Georgia border yet plan to add on safe rooms to their houses. That way, they hope to survive a category-five hurricane, even if the rest of their abode does not.
Change in scenery
Maybe Dick Bove is jamming on the panic button a little hard when it comes to Florida real estate. But there is publicly available evidence that Florida bankers are getting concerned about hurricanes.
The Florida Bankers Association has announced the site of its 2006 annual convention. Palm Beach? Marco Island? Ponte Verda Beach? Perhaps our very own Longboat Key?
Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. The FBA took a heck of a chance this year when it held the confab in Puerto Rico - in September!
The association has wised up and is heading for the Rockies next year. Colorado Springs will host the FBA in '06. And the convention will be a good three weeks before the official start of hurricane season.
The dates are June 4th to June 7 at the Broadmoor resort, which FBA publicists note "has been the vacation destination of hundreds of presidents, statesmen, foreign potentates and celebrities."
Storm-weary bankers from the Sunshine State can soon be added to that list.
Partners in crime
Tampa attorney Suzanne Cannella Warner-Almengual is on house arrest for nine months. Her husband, Brian Almengual, who's also her former law partner and a bankruptcy lawyer, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.
Their crime: Concealing assets, including an office building, in their 2001 joint bankruptcy petition. Both were sentenced last month in Tampa federal court.
The Florida Bar announced Nov. 1 that Warner-Almengual has resigned in lieu of disciplinary proceedings. She can apply for readmission to the bar after three years.
Speaking of bankruptcy
Guess what the topic will be at Stetson University College of Law's 30th annual bankruptcy seminar?
You got it: Bankruptcy reform.
Many of those instrumental in the recent passage of the revised federal bankruptcy code will be at the seminar. It runs from Dec. 8 to Dec. 10 at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort on Clearwater Beach.
The Gulfport law school is sponsoring the bankruptcy seminar with the help of Alexander Paskay, chief judge emeritus of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Guest speakers include Judge Joan N. Feeney of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston; University of North Carolina School of Law Professor S. Elizabeth Gibson, Chapel Hill; Roberta DeAngelis, acting general counsel for the executive office of the U.S. Trustees, Washington, D.C.; Louis M. Phillips, a Baton Rouge lawyer; and attorney Frank J. Santoro of Chesapeake, Va.
Class of 2006
It's an eclectic group of business leaders who recently earned induction into the Tampa Bay Business Hall of Fame. The selection committee at the Florida Council on Economic Education, sponsor of the annual event, picked some big names for the 2006 induction class.
There's Sembler Co.'s Mel Sembler, U.S. ambassador to Italy. He joins TECO Energy Inc.'s John Ramil. The Beck Group's Sam Ellison was chosen along with Fassil Gabremariam of the U.S.-Africa Free Enterprise Education Foundation and St. Petersburg College's Carl Kuttler Jr.
In memoriam, the nonprofit group picked W.S Badcock Corp.'s Wogan S. Badcock Jr. and Jack Painter of Fahlgren Martin.
Business leaders throughout the area will join with the nonprofit group on Feb. 9 to honor the inductee's contributions to the area.
Things go better with Pepsi
Drink up, Pinellas County.
Your commissioners are about to sign a 10-year deal that gives Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. the "official pouring rights" at all county beaches and parks.
The Somers, N.Y.-based bottler, which is 40%-owned by PepsiCo. Inc., is expected to shell out $3.2 million for the pouring preference.
It shouldn't be all carbonated sugar water for Pinellas beachgoers and park picnickers. Pepsi owns Tropicana Products Inc., the fruit juice producer formerly headquartered in Bradenton.
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