Corporate Report

Corporate Report

by Sean Roth | Real Estate Editor

Brown & Brown subsidiary

buys Oklahoma insurance firm

Continuing its buying binge, a subsidiary of insurance company Brown & Brown Inc. purchased the assets of Turner & Associates Insurance Agency Inc. 

Turner & Associates, which reported annual revenues of about $1.7 million, specializes in insurance for the oil and gas industry. The company provides insurance for oil and gas exploration, production and transmission industries, along with several other programs tailored to the oil & gas industry. 

Turner & Associates president, Gary Turner, and his staff will continue from their current Tecumseh, Okla., location as a stand-alone Brown & Brown operation.

Based in both Daytona Beach and Tampa, Brown & Brown Inc. and its subsidiaries offer a broad range of insurance and reinsurance products and services, as well as risk management, third-party administration, managed health care, and Medicare set-aside services and programs. 

ConMed Corp. president

fills SRI/Surgical top spot

The Tampa-based reusable surgical device  and reprocessing services company, SRI/Surgical Express Inc., has announced the appointment of Gerald Woodard as its CEO starting on Jan. 31.

Woodard will also serve as a member of SRI's board of directors. Prior to the addition of Woodard, an executive team is handling many of the CEO duties. ConMed Linvatec is a supplier of orthopedic and sports medicine products, endoscopic imaging systems and various operating room and critical care products.

Woodard has served in executive and management positions with healthcare companies since 1986. He joins SRI from the Linvatec subsidiary of ConMed Corp., where he has served as president since 2000. From 1998 to 2000, Woodard was president of the Elekta Holdings subsidiary of Elekta AB, a manufacturer of stereotactic radiosurgery systems and radiation therapy systems. From 1994 to 1998, Woodard worked with Marquette Medical Systems Inc., where he was most recently president of its monitoring and information systems division. 

"We are excited that Gerald Woodard is joining us," Charlie Federico, chairman of SRI's board of directors, said in a press release. "With his tremendous industry experience and successful track record, Gerald is well-suited for the challenges facing SRI, and we very much look forward to working with him." 

In addition to salary and bonuses Woodard will receive grants of options to purchase 150,000 shares of SRI's stock and 25,000 restricted shares.

In other SRI/Surgical news, the company signed a three-year national agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners LP for that SRI to offer Premier Purchasing's alliance members its line of reprocessing services.

Times Publishing Co.

plans CQ Press sale

The Times Publishing Co., the St. Petersburg-based publisher of the St. Petersburg Times and Washington-based Congressional Quarterly Inc., is exploring the sale of CQ Press, CQ's book-publishing business that serves the library, college and professional markets.

The company has retained the Jordan Edmiston Group Inc., a New York City-based media/information focused investment banking firm, to handle any possible transaction.

Andrew Corty, corporate vice president for Times Publishing, says the decision was made to direct investment resources towards the newspaper and CQ's publications division.

"CQ Press is a sterling business that has performed extremely well over the past decade under Publisher John A. Jenkins," Corty said in a press release pointing to revenue increases of 150% during Jenkins's tenure. "But, in the current business climate, our company can't adequately fund all of its business units that need investment capital."

CQ Press publishes about 100 new titles each year. CQ Press, with some 135 employees, represents about a third of the overall CQ business and has been consistently profitable for years.

Upon the sale of CQ Press, CQ will concentrate its focus on its traditional journalistic enterprise, the company says.

Romark Laboratories

adds new chief medical officer

Dr. Emmet B. Keeffe has joined Tampa-based Romark Laboratories LC as vice president and chief medical officer.

Most recently, Keeffe served as professor of medicine, chief of hepatology and co-director of the Liver Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center. He is a past-president of the American Gastroenterological Association and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and served as chair of the Subspecialty Board on Gastroenterology for the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Keeffe's research interests include antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis B and C, use of hepatitis vaccines and liver transplant selection criteria and outcomes. Throughout his career, he has been an active clinical investigator, with a major focus on novel treatment of chronic viral hepatitis and has published more than 500 papers, book chapters and miscellaneous publications. He lectures widely at national and international scientific meetings, and postgraduate courses.

"Romark's drug discovery research and ongoing clinical development programs offer the promise of new drugs that could change paradigms for treating viral hepatitis," Keeffe said in a press release. "I am excited to have the opportunity to contribute to the advancement of new therapies in this field."

Romark Laboratories is a biotechnology company focused on developing innovative new small molecules for treating infectious diseases, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. The company is currently developing nitazoxanide for treating chronic hepatitis C and is developing other new thiazolides for treating viral diseases including chronic hepatitis B and C, and influenza. The company recently closed on $18 million in institutional financing from the global investment and technology development firm The D.E. Shaw Group to fund much of the drug development.

Valpak celebrates birthday

with revamped envelope

Largo-based Valpak is giving its namesake blue coupon mailing a makeover to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary in 2008. The last Valpak rebranding took place in 2002. Valpak used the input of 10,000 consumers to help choose the final envelope design.

"We've been successful branding our image in the minds of consumers - nine out of 10 consumers open and look through the Valpak envelope every month," Melissa Fisher, senior vice president of marketing for Valpak said in a press release. "Central to this rebranding is enhanced targeting and audience selection services for our advertising clients. Clients have been excited to find we include this level of sophisticated marketing research in our standard service."

Unlike other mass mailers, Valpak uses syndicated and secondary research data to target select households based on key demographic and psychographic traits to help advertisers target customers.

Valpak also recently completed a $200 million production and distribution facility to help its targeting capabilities. The automated facility lets advertisers target households in groups of 10,000.

Valpak is owned and operated by Cox Target Media, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America. Valpak also distributes some 20 billion offers inserted in nearly 530 million envelopes.

Etc...

Executive VP Moore

resigns from PGT

Herman Moore III resigned as executive vice president of PGT Inc. and PGT Industries Inc., a wholly owned operating subsidiary of PGT Inc.  As part of departure Moore will receive a lump sum payment in cash of $506,545.67. The company has retained Moore on as a consultant until June 28, 2009 and will pay him a lump sum consulting fee of $90,000. Along with giving up most of his restricted stock and options, Moore has also agreed to a non-compete agreement through June of 2010.

Moore joined the company in December of 2005 after serving as vice president of operations at Ahlstrom Engine Filtration & Air Media, LLC where he was responsible for plants in Kentucky, Illinois, New York and Texas.