When I moved to town a quarter century ago to cover the local banking industry, Jacksonville was considered the banking capital of Florida.
Those days are long gone, as major Jacksonville-based institutions such as Barnett Bank and Florida National Bank were acquired by large national firms.
But these days, it seems we can't even keep small locally based banks around. Northeast Florida banks are disappearing at a rapid rate.
Before the financial crisis that started in 2007, there were 20 commercial and savings banks headquartered in the Jacksonville metropolitan area.
That number has dropped to 10 and soon could be down to six.
Last week, Moultrie, Ga.-based Ameris Bancorp announced a $15.7 million agreement to buy Prosperity Bank of St. Augustine, to build up its market presence in Northeast Florida.
That followed an announcement the previous week that the only other bank headquartered in St. Johns County, the Bank of St. Augustine, agreed to merge into Indiantown-based Harbor Community Bank.
That followed the announcement the week before of the closing of the only bank headquartered in Clay County, Heritage Bank of North Florida. Its deposits were acquired by Jacksonville-based FirstAtlantic Bank.
At least FirstAtlantic is sticking around.
Meanwhile, the parent company of Atlantic Coast Bank has announced an agreement to merge into Fort Lauderdale-based Florida Community Bank.
That deal's future is in question, with shareholders holding 26 percent of Atlantic Coast Financial Corp.'s stock pledging to vote against the merger.
However, if that deal goes through, the only locally based banks left in Duval County will be FirstAtlantic, EverBank, American Enterprise Bank, Florida Capital Bank and The Jacksonville Bank.
There is one other bank headquartered in the metro area, CBC National Bank in Fernandina Beach. But CBC is a subsidiary of a South Carolina-based holding company, Coastal Banking Company Inc.
And no, Baker County has no bank headquarters.
So Jacksonville is nowhere close to being a banking capital anymore. It's a good thing we found logistics to fall back on.
After delay, Stein Mart reports higher earnings
After delaying its financial reports for months as it worked to fix some accounting issues, Stein Mart Inc. late on Friday announced higher earnings for fiscal 2012, which ended on Feb. 2.
The Jacksonville-based fashion retailer reported net income of $25 million, or 57 cents a share, up from $19.9 million, or 44 cents a share, in fiscal 2011.
The 2011 results were restated, after the accounting review, to show an increase of $103,000 from its previously reported results. That restatement had no impact on its diluted earnings per share.
"We are thankful that the financial restatement is now behind us and we continue to be keenly focused on running the business," interim CEO Jay Stein said in a news release.
Body Central setting the stage
Body Central Corp. last week reported a drop in first-quarter sales and earnings, as expected.
Net income was 17 cents a share, down from 36 cents in the first quarter of 2012. Total sales fell 1.5 percent to $81.4 million and comparable-store sales — sales at stores open for more than a year — dropped by 10.2 percent.
The Jacksonville-based fashion retailer has completely overhauled its management team after a big decline in sales last year, and new CEO Brian Woolf said in the company's conference call with analysts that Body Central will spend the first half of this year "setting the stage" for improved results.
"We made solid progress on our plan to get the business back on track" during the first quarter, Woolf said. That includes a number of new executives hired since Woolf joined the company in February.
"My first priority was to ensure we had an organizational structure in place that would enable us to effectively execute our strategic plan," he said.
Woolf is confident that he has the team in place to turn Body Central around, but he warned that we probably won't see the results in the second quarter.
"We don't expect our progress to be evident until the second half of this year, when the initiatives that we are undertaking really begin to take hold and meaningfully impact our results," he said.
Sidoti & Co. analyst Michael Richardson believes the company is moving in the right direction.
"We anticipate recent management changes will fuel fresh, trend-right styles that spark improved earnings growth in the second half of 2013 to 2014," Richardson said in a research note.
"Once Body Central works through current inventory, we contend that new merchandising initiatives will boost growth starting in the third quarter," he said.
Fidelity closer to restaurant IPO
Fidelity National Financial Inc. last week reported first-quarter earnings rose 22 percent to $90 million, or 39 cents a share, on the strength of its main business, title insurance.
But as usual, FNF isn't resting on its laurels.
The company continues to tinker with its investments in the restaurant business. It owns 87 percent of an "upscale" restaurant company called J. Alexander's LLC that owns the J. Alexander's and Stoney River Legendary Steaks chain, and owns 55 percent of a "family and casual" restaurant company that owns the O'Charley's, Ninety Nine Restaurant, Max & Erma's, Village Inn and Bakers Square chains.
During the company's conference call with analysts, Executive Chairman Bill Foley indicated FNF is working to expand the upscale company to get it ready for a possible initial public offering.
"We believe that adding one or two more brands in the upscale casual puts us in the position to be able to start taking a serious look at an IPO for that group of restaurants," Foley said.
"We're right in the middle of a couple of different transactions that we're negotiating, trying to make sure we don't do anything foolish, but with complementary brands that could be merged or could be assimilated into J. Alexander's," he said.
Any plans for an IPO of the other restaurants will be put on hold as the company proceeds with a major renovation of the O'Charley's chain.
The company has finished complete renovations of seven restaurants, including one at 410 Commerce Center Drive in Jacksonville and another on Fleming Island.
Foley said the remodeled restaurants have averaged a 17 percent increase in sales.
The company expects to finish remodels of 120 to 130 O'Charley's restaurants by 2014, so it would be "later in '14 or '15 before there were some sort of monetization event such as an IPO" for the casual restaurant business, Foley said.
FNF also is considering acquisitions that would add additional services to its title insurance business, CEO George Scanlon said.
Those acquisitions would be "boutiquey-type deals that we would be picking up over time and as an opportunity presents itself in the market," he said.
FIS beats forecasts
Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of 62 cents a share, up from 53 cents last year and a penny higher than the average forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
FIS, which provides technology services for banks and was spun off from FNF, said total revenue rose 4.6 percent to $1.5 billion, with 5 percent growth in organic revenue (growth excluding acquisitions).
"We continued to deliver on our financial targets and execute our strategy to maximize performance. This is evidenced by organic growth of 5 percent or better in eight of the last 10 quarters," CEO Frank Martire said in the company's conference call with analysts.
"We are encouraged by this healthy start to the year and our progress toward achieving our 2013 goals," he said.
FIS' stock rose $1.38 to $42.05 Tuesday after the earnings report.
Patriot earnings up across the board
Patriot Transportation Holding Inc. reported earnings rose 38 percent in the second quarter ended March 31 to $2.3 million, or 24 cents a share. Revenue rose 8 percent to $33.9 million.
Patriot increased its operating profits in all three of its business segments, transportation, developed property rentals and mining royalty lands.
"As you can see from our results, all three segments of our business are operating at an improved level," CEO Tom Baker said in Patriot's conference call.
"All in all we remain optimistic about the balance of fiscal 2013," he said.
Web.com increases earnings
Web.com Group Inc. last week reported adjusted first-quarter earnings of 48 cents a share, up from 35 cents last year and 3 cents higher than the average forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson.
The Jacksonville-based company, which provides website development services for business, continued to add subscribers and also increased its average revenue per user in the quarter.
"The first quarter was an excellent start to 2013," CEO David Brown said in the company's conference call.
"We are executing at a high level and according to our plan. Our strategy of balancing strong profitability and cash flow against increased investments to drive an acceleration in revenue growth is working, and we are optimistic about Web.com's outlook for the remainder of the year," he said.
Web.com's stock reached a record high of $19.88 Friday morning after the earnings report before closing at $19, up $1.23 on the day.
Genesee completes reorganization
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. last week said it relocated its corporate headquarters from Greenwich to Darien, Conn. The short-line railroad company said it will continue to maintain its operations headquarters in Jacksonville.
However, the company has made significant job cuts in Jacksonville after its acquisition last year of RailAmerica Inc. The company said last week that it has completed the closing of RailAmerica's former corporate office.
Genesee said in Securities and Exchange filings that it laid off a total of 53 former RailAmerica employees from December through February. It also said in a March filing that it would cut another 55 RailAmerica jobs, but it did not say if those were all in Jacksonville.
ADT drops on earnings miss
ADT Corp.'s stock dropped $3 to $40.64 Wednesday after a disappointing earnings report. That was the stock's lowest level since October, shortly after ADT was spun off from Tyco International Ltd. as a separate public company.
The Boca Raton-based security company, which employs about 2,000 people in Jacksonville, reported adjusted earnings for the second quarter ended March 29 of 41 cents a share, 5 cents lower than last year and 2 cents lower than the average Thomson forecast.
Convergys earnings higher
Convergys Corp. reported first-quarter earnings from continuing operations of 27 cents a share, 5 cents higher than last year and 4 cents higher than the average Thomson forecast.
However, the better-than-expected earnings didn't do anything for the stock, which fell by 6 cents to $16.96 Wednesday after the report.
Cincinnati-based Convergys, which employs more than 1,000 people in Jacksonville, provides outsourced customer service functions for businesses.
Vulcan stock up despite loss
Despite reporting a first-quarter net loss of 42 cents a share, Vulcan Materials Co.'s stock rose as much as $2.91 to $51.29 Thursday after its quarterly report.
The Birmingham, Ala.-based construction materials company's revenue of $538.2 million was slightly higher than analysts' forecast, and the company said market conditions are improving.
"Importantly, we are seeing significant housing start growth in several key states, including Florida, Texas, California, Georgia and Arizona," CEO Don James said in a news release.
Vulcan's Southern operating group is headquartered in Jacksonville, after it acquired Florida Rock Industries Inc. in 2007.
Publix stock rises
Publix Super Markets Inc. last week said that based on the latest appraisal, its stock price increased from $23.20 to $26.90, effective May 1.
The Lakeland-based supermarket chain's stock is not publicly traded and is made available for sale only to employees.
Publix reported first-quarter earnings rose 15 percent to $471.3 million, or 61 cents a share. Total sales in the quarter rose 6.1 percent to $7.5 billion and comparable-store rose 3.9 percent.
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