A company developing a process that purifies recycled plastic products is now headquartered in Jacksonville, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
PureCycle Technologies Inc. “holds a global license for the only patented solvent-driven purification recycling technology, developed by The Procter & Gamble Company, that is designed to transform polypropylene plastic waste (designated as No. 5 plastic) into a continuously renewable resource,” the company said in a news release.
PureCycle was headquartered in Orlando but now lists its principal office address as 4651 Salisbury Road near Butler Boulevard and Interstate 95. That address is the Quadrant at Southpoint I building.
The company is working to commercialize its recycling process at a plant in Ironton, Ohio.
The company did not respond to an email inquiry about its Jacksonville office. Its annual report said it had 146 employees at the end of 2023, but did not say how many of those worked in Orlando.
PureCycle says its purification process “removes color, odor, and other impurities from No. 5 plastic waste resulting in an ultra-pure recycled plastic that can be recycled and reused multiple times, changing our relationship with plastic.”
The company recorded no revenue in the first quarter this year but company officials said in a June 5 presentation to the Stifel 2024 Cross Sector Insight Conference in Boston that its Ohio plant is nearing full operation.
“If you look at the overall arc of our company, the last two to three years we’ve had to build the plant, we’ve had to commission the plant, and now we have to run the plant and sell the product,” said one executive.
The executives were not introduced on the webcast of the conference but PureCycle said in a news release that CEO Dustin Olson and Chief Financial Officer Jaime Vasquez would be participating.
“Our goal is to get the plant started up, running on a continuous basis so we can start posting, let’s say, production numbers to the market,” the executive said.
He said there have been some “hiccups” along the way to getting the plant operational.
“Most of them were tech-related that we had to solve, but we solved them. We got past it,” he said.
“We’re very optimistic about the way the plant is running right now.”
PureCycle’s annual report said the company has secured sites for additional facilities in Augusta, Georgia, and Antwerp, Belgium.
PureCycle trades on the Nasdaq market under the ticker symbol “PCT.”
Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. CEO De Lyle Bloomquist also made a presentation June 5 at the Stifel conference.
The Jacksonville-based maker of cellulose specialty products, known as RYAM, is focused on reducing debt as it seeks to reverse several years of losses.
“The top priority for me this year has been around the balance sheet,” Bloomquist said.
“We have a refi that we’ve got to get done this year because we have January 2026 notes that come due. So I need to get those refinanced before they go current,” he said.
“We’re in the middle of that process now. Markets are conducive and we see an opportunity to go forward to get that done.”
RYAM in late 2023 said it was putting some noncore assets at a Canadian plant up for sale.
“We’ve been running that sales process now for a few months. We have a number of suitors going after that,” Bloomquist said.
“We’re running this independently of the refinancing. Once we get the sale process done, the plan is to take those proceeds and pay down the quantum of debt to improve the leverage of the company going forward.”
Rayonier Inc., the timber and real estate company that split up with RYAM 10 years ago, made a presentation June 3 at the annual NAREIT REITweek conference in New York, giving new CEO Mark McHugh an opportunity to present his vision for the company.
“Increasingly we’ve come to see ourselves as not just a timber company but really more of a land resources company,” he said.
Rayonier owns or leases 2.7 million acres of timberland in the Southern and Northwest U.S. and in New Zealand.
It also is developing a portion of its land holdings, including the Wildlight project in Nassau County where Rayonier is headquartered.
The company also has a development called Heartwood south of Savannah, Georgia.
McHugh, who was promoted April 2 to CEO, sees additional opportunities for Rayonier to capitalize on a push by businesses to reduce carbon.
“There is significant investment currently underway to decarbonize the economy,” he said.
Rayonier has land available that can be leased for solar or wind farms. It also can sell wood fibers for bioenergy and biofuels, McHugh said.
“Long term, we think that all of these land-based solutions are very promising,” he said.
“We really see solar and CCS as the most promising near-term opportunities for Rayonier.”
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a process of storing carbon dioxide underground.
While looking at new possibilities, McHugh expressed optimism about Rayonier’s ongoing timber and real estate development activities.
“New home construction has proven to be remarkably resilient amid a higher interest rate environment,” benefiting the timber market, he said.
“The housing sector remains significantly underfilled.”
“We also see very favorable migration and demographic trends that are going to benefit, we believe, our development projects going forward.”
Jacksonville-based Regency Centers Corp. also gave a REITweek presentation, and CEO Lisa Palmer said market trends are favorable for the neighborhood shopping center developer.
“Retailers have a new appreciation for a physical presence,” Palmer said during Regency’s June 5 presentation.
While consumers turned to online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic, current trends favor brick-and-mortar retail stores, she said.
“There was a cloud hanging over retail in 2019,” Palmer said, with e-commerce expanding even before the pandemic.
“When COVID hit, it just accelerated what was already happening,” she said.
However, consumers became restless during coronavirus lockdowns.
“They realized they did not want to stay at home all the time and order everything from their couch,” Palmer said.
“They enjoyed shopping. They wanted to get out,” she said. “But they also want to stay close to their neighborhood.”
That trend favors Regency, which specializes in suburban centers anchored by grocery stores.
“Our properties, which are in desirable suburban trade areas, continue to benefit from post-pandemic tailwinds of micro-migration to suburban markets and also sustained work-from-home trends,” Palmer said.
Retailers also had to change after the pandemic.
“They were forced to do a lot of e-commerce and deliver to homes and they very quickly realized that it wasn’t profitable,” Palmer said.
So, retailers invested more in the in-store experience to entice shoppers.
“The most profitable way for them to deliver their goods to their customers is to have the customer walk in the door,” Palmer said.
Having customers buy online and pick up their purchases in the store is the second best way for retailers to profit, she said, citing Target as the best example of that trend.
Palmer said the environment for Regency’s shopping centers is very healthy, with strong leasing demand.
The company’s portfolio of 482 properties around the country was 95% leased at the end of the first quarter.
“Top retailers around the country are aggressively seeking opportunities to expand,” she said.
SPAR Group Inc. announced June 5 that investment firm Highwire Capital will take the company private with a $58 million buyout agreement.
The deal includes SPAR’s Jacksonville-based subsidiary Resource Plus, which provides services for retailers and product vendors.
Auburn Hills, Michigan-based SPAR, which provides merchandising, marketing and distribution services for retailers and brands, acquired 51% of Resource Plus in 2018. Resource Plus CEO Richard Justus retained the other 49%.
However, SPAR disclosed in recent SEC filings that it purchased Justus’ minority interest in Resource Plus as part of the process of selling the entire company.
Highwire is paying $2.50 a share to buy SPAR. The stock’s average closing price had been $2.10 in the 20 days prior to the buyout agreement but SPAR said in a news release the stock has been volatile, with an average closing price of $1.21 in the last 12 months.
“The Board believes that agreement to this proposal is the best way to secure the recent value created and deliver a meaningful return to our shareholders,” Chairman Jim Gillis said in the release.
Wells Fargo analyst Christian Wetherbee rated Jacksonville CSX Corp.’s stock at “equal weight,” as part of an initiation report on railroad company stocks.
“We’re initiating coverage of North American rails with a selective bias focused on idiosyncratic opportunities for outsized EPS growth,” Wetherbee said in his June 6 report.
“CSX is a high-quality rail which continues to execute smoothly without meaningful drama or noise,” he said.
“Its multiple is the lowest of the group, which is attractive in its own right, but EPS growth expectation lags peers, making relative valuation appropriate. With already strong operational execution, we don’t see a clear near-term margin catalyst unique to CSX that could spark real upside to estimates,” he said.
Wetherbee set a price target of $35 for CSX, which was trading at $33.05 at the time of his report.
Wetherbee rated Norfolk Southern Corp., Union Pacific Corp. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited at “overweight.” He rated CSX and Canadian National Railway Co. at “equal weight.”