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In a week of big nuclear and solar power news, economics of energy is changing fast
At Darden Restaurants' headquarters near Orlando, this week dedicated its rooftop solar panel array, designed to provide 20 percent of the building's energy needs. (Photo courtesy Darden.)
Wake up and good morning. The energy world is changing fast, Floridians, and paying attention to what's happening may save your wallet from being looted. This week, two important events happened. U.S. regulators approved plans to build the country's first nuclear power plant in 30 years in Georgia. And Darden Restaurants, the Orlando company that owns such chains as Red Lobster, The Capital Grille and Olive Garden, dedicated this enormous rooftop solar array, capable of generating 1 megawatt (that's 1 million watts) at its headquarters. ... Read more
Recovery? Trying to draw meaning from the chaos of new housing news in Florida
Mothballed Tampa Bay area subdivision, 2012: A thaw in new home building may be under way. Photo: Bruce Moyer, Tampa Bay Times.
Wake up and good morning. So is the Tampa Bay and Florida housing market at a bottom and really ready to start improving? The crystal ball remains murky but there's no lack of housing activity on both sides of the equation to ponder. For openers: ... Read more
- Bank of America
- banks
- Citigroup
- construction
- housing
- JPMorgan Chase
- Legal issues
- mortgages
- real estate
- Wells Fargo
Gazelle Lab start-up crew puts Tampa Bay program on hold, embraces Orlando this spring
"Demo Day" of Gazelle Lab's first "graduating" class of six business start-ups was held at St. Petersburg's Mahaffey Theater last November when founders of six young companies pitched their business vision to potential investors and a supportive and curious Tampa Bay audience. Photo by James Borchuck of the Tampa Bay Times.
Wake up and good morning. Gazelle Lab, one of Tampa Bay's most promising elements of what many hope will be a rising regional "entrepreneurial ecosystem" to mentor and focus new business start-ups here, is putting its business accelerator on hold locally and taking its show to Orlando. ... Read more
Raleigh editorial skewers Progress Energy's fumbles with multiple nuclear plants
Progess Energy's Brunswick nuclear plant, which is located near Southport, N.C., had to shut down on Nov. 16. Why? Read on...
Wake up and good morning. The Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer newspaper in the (for the moment) hometown of Progress Energy seems to have had a key if belated epiphany over the weak oversight by the power company (which includes Progress Energy Florida) of its multiple nuclear power plants in Florida (one) and the Carolinas (several). ... Read more
When insurers use death notices to stop retirement checks but ignore them to pay death benefits
For Tampa's Odyssey Marine, treasure hunting a cruel world of big ocean finds, bigger court losses
A cannon was recovered in 2008 from the wreckage of the H.M.S. Victory in the English Channel, in this photo courtesy of Odyssey Marine.
Wake up and good morning. What the world's oceans giveth, international law taketh away. Tampa's undersea treasure hunters, Odyssey Marine Exploration, continues it win-a-lot, lose-a-lot ways in the unique world of searching for shipwrecks in the hopes of hitting another mother lode. ... Read more
5 Tampa Bay area attorneys: Who got disciplined this time around and for what?
Lawyers Beware: Shakespeare characters Dick the Butcher and Smith the Weaver seizing the Clerk of Chatham by Henry William Bunbury (1795).
Wake up and good morning. While no one seems inclined to endorse Shakespeare's line by Dick the Butcher in Henry VI -- "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" -- the Florida Bar goes so far as to discipline some of them routinely. That's a good thing since there are about 93,000 attorneys practicing in Florida. ... Read more
Tampa's up-and-coming Numara Software bought by Houston firm for reported $300 million
Another one of Tampa Bay's sharper technology firms has just been picked off by a bigger company. Tampa's Numara Software, founded in 1991 as Blue Ocean Software, will be bought by Houston-based BMC Software, a $6 billion market-value, publicly traded (Nasdaq: BMC) firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed initially but an SEC filing by BMC puts the deal at $300 million.
"The combined strengths of BMC and Numara will dramatically reshape the IT management market," Dave Hansen (left), Numara CEO, said in a statement. "Mid-sized and small business organizations will benefit from new choices and more importantly, will have more capabilities to manage IT in support of the changing needs of their business."
Here is the press release on the deal. ... Read more
FTC fines collector of "expired" debt with Tampa call center, but no admission of wrongdoing
Update: The Florida Attorney General's Office is investigating Asset Acceptance, the debt collection agency examined below, to see if it violated the state's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports here.
Wake up and good morning. In a federal courtroom in Tampa, the Federal Trade Commission is pursuing a promised crackdown on the booming debt-collection industry, announcing a $2.5 million settlement with a national company operating a major Tampa Bay call center for allegedly coercing borrowers into paying debts they no longer legally owed. ... Read more
At Sundance film fest, mockumentary zings Orlando timeshare mogul and his "Queen of Versailles"
Photo courtesy of Westgate Resorts.
Wake up and good morning. Some of the Sundance Film Festival's most buzz-worthy films tapped into the country’s financial stress and social unrest, Bloomberg News reports in this story, and one of those films lasers in on an astonishing lifestyle and symbol of excess in "The Queen of Versailles." ... Read more
About the blog
Tampa Bay business news and insights are brought to you each day by business columnist Robert Trigaux and his fellow business writers. Venture provides an inside look at Tampa Bay companies as well as events, people, deal, triumphs and failures across the Tampa Bay economy.
E-mail Robert Trigaux: trigaux@tampabay.com
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