Health Management Associates sent a clear message to the private-equity vultures circling the Naples-based hospital chain: Back off. Steven Kossoff, principal of Clearwater's Meridian Development Group paid $7.3 million for Lakeland Interstate Business Park in September 2005. It was his firm's first investment in Florida after relocating to the state from Buffalo, N.Y.t's no surprise that companies in Florida lack easy access to venture capital. Still, it's disconcerting to realize last year's VC funding in the Sunshine State dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade.The strategy of knowing your customers, making sound asset and loan decisions and going after condo association deposits might not be exciting, but in the case of Sarasota-based People's Community Bancshares, it sure has been profitable: The bank is regularly one of the top performing community banks in the Sarasota market.It wasn't a good week to be either an executive or a shareholder - or both - with Bradenton-based Coast Bank.
