In the middle of Hurricane Irma, The Fresh Market Inc. grabbed a former top Winn-Dixie executive out of Jacksonville and named him CEO.
Larry Appel last Monday was named president and chief executive of Fresh Market, the North Carolina-based specialty grocer that operates 176 stores in 24 states.
Appel spent 10 years at Jacksonville-based Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. in several high-ranking positions, including chief operations officer and chief legal officer.
He left in 2012 after Winn-Dixie merged with Bi-Lo LLC into the company now known as Southeastern Grocers.
In 2014, Appel became CEO of Skeeter Snacks, a company formed to develop and market a line of nut-free snack foods.
Skeeter Snacks was headquartered in Jacksonville after Appel came in, but new investors moved the company’s headquarters to Chicago and in May changed the corporate name to The Safe and Fair Food Co.
Appel left Skeeter Snacks in November and most recently was a principal at Jacksonville investment banking and financial advisory firm Heritage Capital Group. He could not be reached for comment last week.
Fresh Market was a publicly traded company before it was acquired in April 2016 by Apollo Global Management LLC.
Apollo Chairman Andrew Jhawar said in a news release the investment firm chose Appel after reviewing internal and external candidates.
“We look forward to partnering with Larry and are confident in his ability to lead operationally and to execute strategies to ‘win’ with our customers,” he said.
Landstar System Inc. did find its way to another record high last week in the wake of Hurricane Irma, albeit briefly.
You may recall that two weeks earlier, the Jacksonville-based trucking company soared because of the impact of Hurricane Harvey striking Texas.
In the past, Landstar received government contracts to provide trucking services for hurricane relief, and investors speculated the devastation of Harvey would result in big-money contracts.
Landstar’s stock rose as much as $12.80 over seven trading days to a high of $94.60 before Labor Day weekend.
Last Monday, the stock rose $1.40 to a new high of $96.15 as Irma churned up the Florida coast. However, Landstar gave back that gain by the end of trading Monday.
Investors likely saw the Harvey-related increase as a big enough gain for the stock, even if Irma relief brings more business to Landstar.
One stock you may have thought would take a big hit from Irma is NextEra Energy Inc.
Juno Beach-based NextEra is the parent company of Florida Power & Light Co., which reported 5 million of its customers without power last Monday. As that news came in, NextEra actually rose as much as $3.34 to a record high of $151.60 that day.
How is that possible? According to a story by Zacks Investment Research, major utilities have done a good job improving their infrastructure to minimize long-term power outages after a major storm. It said Texas utilities reported little damage to their infrastructure after Harvey, so Wall Street was not concerned about power companies impacted by Irma.
FPL provides power in most Northeast Florida communities outside of Jacksonville and to every county along Florida’s east coast, except Duval.
Besides FPL, NextEra also operates a renewable energy subsidiary called NextEra Energy Resources.
Before Irma hit, J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Turnure began coverage of NextEra with an “overweight” rating.
Turnure said in his report that the renewable subsidiary, which produces solar and wind energy, accounts for 38 percent of NextEra’s earnings per share, and he expects that number to grow.
“The overall market potential for North American renewables over the next four years appears larger than ever, and we see NextEra’s ability to maintain or expand share as likely,” he said.
Jacksonville-based shopping center developer Regency Centers Corp. announced after Harvey that it had no significant damage to its Houston-area centers.
Two weeks later, Regency was back at it, announcing initial inspections of its properties in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina showed no significant damage from Irma. However, it did say operations at some of its properties and offices were impacted by power outages.
Regency is headquartered in the Downtown Wells Fargo Center.
Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. decided to shut down its cellulose specialties plants in Fernandina Beach and Jesup, Georgia, the Friday before Hurricane Irma struck.
The Jacksonville-based company Tuesday said it was beginning to restart its core systems and expected to be back to full production capacity by the weekend.
“The pre-emptive shutdown was managed safely with no injuries and limited physical damage to the facilities. The company is coordinating with suppliers and logistic partners to help ensure a safe and efficient restart of operations with minimal customer disruption,” it said in a news release.
Northrop Grumman Corp. reopened its St. Augustine aircraft facility Wednesday after closing for Irma.
By Friday the defense and aerospace company said it reopened facilities in seven Florida cities. However, one site in Orlando remained closed.
As Black Knight Financial Services prepares to be a fully independent company, William Blair & Co. analyst Brandon Dobell initiated coverage of the Jacksonville-based mortgage technology company with an “outperform” rating.
“We believe Black Knight is well-positioned to continue to take market share in an evolving mortgage industry thanks to its role in loan origination and servicing and its analytics that allow for timely and effective business decisions,” Dobell said in his research report.
Black Knight already is the dominant company in its field, providing processing services for 62 percent of all U.S. first mortgage loans. But Dobell sees room for growth.
“As the U.S. mortgage industry evolves and adopts more technology, data, and analytics, we believe Black Knight will benefit from strong organic growth among its current client base, with an added layer of new client wins and new product offerings,” he said.
Jacksonville-based title insurance company Fidelity National Financial Inc. owns a majority stake in Black Knight, but it plans to distribute its Black Knight shares to Fidelity stockholders at the end of this month, making Black Knight independent.
The company will be renamed Black Knight Inc. when the spinoff is completed.
Dobell values Black Knight’s stock at $61. It was trading at $43.05 when he issued his report Wednesday.
“We believe upside in the stock will be driven by comparatively higher revenue growth, better incremental margins than investors expect, and a bit higher multiple, in part because the spinoff transaction from Fidelity National Financial of 83.3 million shares will soon be in the rearview mirror,” he said.
While Black Knight dominates the mortgage technology field, a former parent company is the leader among all companies providing banking technology.
IDC Financial Insights last week said Jacksonville-based Fidelity National Information Services Inc. was the top company in its annual IDC FinTech ranking. The list is based on 2016 revenue from technology services provided to financial institutions.
Fidelity National Information Services, or FIS, is a Fortune 500 company that reported revenue of $9.2 billion last year.
FIS was spun off from Fidelity National Financial, and it later spun off the mortgage technology part of its business as a separate public company called Lender Processing Services Inc.
Fidelity National Financial bought back LPS in 2014 and renamed the business Black Knight.
IDC analyst Karen Massey said in a news release that stamping FIS at the top of its ranking should help its business, along with the other top companies.
“The financial services industry is currently faced with a disruptive landscape and changing consumer behaviors. The IDC FinTech Rankings represent those IT providers that have demonstrated success and are poised to take their financial institution clients to the next level of innovation and transformation,” she said.
International Baler Corp. increased quarterly earnings, in part because of money saved by the resignation of its chief executive officer.
The Jacksonville-based company, which makes balers used for recycling, reported earnings for the third quarter ended July 31 quadrupled to $81,134, or 2 cents a share.
Revenue fell 6 percent to $3.1 million. However, expenses were sharply reduced by reductions in personnel, the company said in its quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
CEO Roger Griffin resigned in January and was replaced by Chief Financial Officer William Nielsen.
International Baler’s most recent proxy statement showed Griffin was paid $130,000 in salary in fiscal 2016 and Nielsen was paid $120,000. They received no other compensation beyond their salaries.
In addition to Griffin, a regional sales manager and one other salesperson also left the company, the quarterly report said.
Two privately owned Jacksonville-based companies, Patriot Rail Co. LLC and Diversified Port Holdings LLC, announced a merger.
Patriot operates 12 short line railroads and five rail-related service companies. Diversified operates a maritime port logistics business through subsidiaries Seaonus and Portus.
Terms of the deal were not announced.
Patriot CEO John Fenton was appointed CEO of the merged company.
“In our day-to-day service delivery we noted customers increasingly seeking bundled port and rail solutions,” Fenton said in a news release.
“In the past DPH and Patriot have partnered in providing these solutions to our customers. The combining of the businesses will enable us to further enhance service delivery for our customers and offer more value-add transportation solutions.”
Shoe Carnival Inc. on Wednesday said Charles Tomm was appointed to its board of directors.
Tomm currently is a principal at Heritage Capital after previously serving as CEO of two auto dealership companies in Jacksonville, Brumos Automotive and Coggin Automotive.
Former Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver is chairman of Evansville, Indiana-based Shoe Carnival and is its largest shareholder.