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As St. Petersburg's Jabil Circuit broadens its business, it shrinks its name to Jabil

 
Jabil Circuit informally dropped "Circuit" from its marketing material and signage, like at its St. Petersburg headquarters, years ago. Now it's official.
[Times file photo]
Jabil Circuit informally dropped "Circuit" from its marketing material and signage, like at its St. Petersburg headquarters, years ago. Now it's official. [Times file photo]
Published May 23, 2017

St. Petersburg's Fortune 500 company, Jabil Circuit, informally tossed aside the "Circuit" in its name some time ago. That's because circuit board manufacturing, the company's core business for decades, has been squeezed out by a broader business agenda ranging from consumer packaging to supply chain management.

Hence the new and simpler name: Jabil Inc.

The company made it official in an SEC filing this week, announcing that Jabil Circuit will be trimmed to Jabil as of June 5. Nothing else really changes. JBL, its stock ticker, will remain as is.

Companies, especially those in technology, often update their names to better reflect the rapidly evolving profile of their businesses. For example, the company once known as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. would become better known as International Business Machines Corp. and is now identified as simply IBM.

Based on annual revenues of more than $17 billion, Jabil ranks No. 158 on the latest Fortune 500, just below Facebook and just above telecommunications company CenturyLink. Jabil employed close to 140,000 employees in mid-2016.