Centene's purchase of WellCare Health Plans is a blow to the Tampa Bay area's clout

The sale of WellCare Health Plans came as a surprise to many. The announcement sent local officials scrambling to acquaint themselves with Centene Corp., the St. Louis-based company that made the $17 billion deal.WellCare is — or was — a locally grown success story, like Raymond James Financial or Bloomin' Brands, the parent of Outback Steakhouse and several other restaurant chains. Now, the managed healthcare company won't be headquartered here anymore. It will be absorbed into Centene, which seems to have a solid reputation, as good as any huge company that has been in business for decades. Still, the deal hurts a little. WellCare was healthy and growing. It had 4,500 local workers, making it one of our largest private-sector employers. The potential was there to grow bigger, create more high-paying jobs.It's hard not to think of this as our loss and St. Louis' gain. RELATED: Centene Corp. buys Tampa's WellCare Health Plans. Everyone said the right things Wednesday. We look forward to getting to know Centene. WellCare has a lot of talent. We expect to keep a substantial presence in Tampa. "Business as usual," a WellCare vice president promised.Sure, but that business will be run out of Missouri, not Tampa. Centene CEO Michael Neidorff will continue to head the company, not WellCare CEO Ken Burdick. And WellCare will get just two spots on the 11-member board.WellCare wasn't a bruised apple looking for a savior. Its stock price rose nearly 325 percent in the past five years, making it the most valuable publicly traded company based in the Tampa Bay area. It had also gone on its own buying spree in recent years, strengthening its hold in the competitive managed healthcare industry. WELLCARE: The managed healthcare provider is on a roll. The combined Centene company will be a burly player, with about 22 million members, including 12 million Medicaid members and 5 million on Medicare. The number crunchers project $97 billion in annual revenues. That's close to what Microsoft made in its last fiscal year. It's more than Wells Fargo reported and significantly more than IBM.The sides talked about how the purchase will create efficiencies, which can mean many things including job reductions. Best case, Centene looks under the hood and likes what it sees in Tampa. Maybe it even adds jobs here. We might have the right mix of talent, know-how and low taxes.Even so, our clout got dinged. That's what happens when a mid-sized metro area loses one of its few large home-grown companies. The deal comes on the heels of two other local biggies getting bought. Canada's Emera took over TECO, parent to Tampa Electric Co., in 2016. The next year, QVC purchased St. Petersburg's HSN (Home Shopping Network). The WellCare deal hurts a little more knowing that we've struggled to persuade other corporations to move their headquarters to our area. We did land Mosaic. The phosphate company moved its headquarters here from Minnesota last year. With WellCare's sale, Mosaic is one of the Tampa Bay area's remaining four Fortune 500 companies, along with Tech Data, Jabil and Raymond James. That WellCare was still around for Centene to buy is a testament to its durability. Twelve years ago, 200 FBI and other agents raided its headquarters. The investigation led to health care fraud charges and the conviction of its CEO and two other executives. Solid management, savvy purchases and a little luck helped it regain its footing. The company wasn't nationally known like Hooters, which got started in Clearwater. It never had the name recognition of Publix, nor was it exotic like the treasure hunters at Odyssey Marine Exploration. But WellCare was ours. Now it's theirs. And that stings. Contact Graham Brink at gbrink@tampabay.com. Follow @GrahamBrink.

Centene's purchase of WellCare Health Plans is a blow to the Tampa Bay area's clout

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