Big firm sees big doings

The second-largest company on the Gulf Coast, St. Petersburg-based Jabil Circuit, could get much bigger soon from acquisitions.

That word comes straight from Jabil CEO Mark Mondello. The executive chatted about the company's challenges and its future in a September interview in with IndustryWeek, a manufacturing trade publication. “Over the next three to five years,” Mondello told the publication, “I do see acquisitions becoming a more significant part of our strategy.”

Jabil, which manufactures circuit boards and other electronic components, had $18.3 billion in 2013 sales, up 6.9% from $17.1 billion in 2012. The publicly traded firm has 90 manufacturing facilities in 23 countries and 175,000 employees, according to IndustryWeek. Jabil ships around $50 million worth of products every day. Clients include Apple, GE, Johnson & Johnson and Cisco. Shares of Jabil, traded under the symbol JBL, have hovered near the stock's 52-week high, $24.13, for most of September.