Corporate Report

Weller forms third-party management, hires new president for division
Weller Residential, a St. Petersburg-based multifamily real estate investment and property management company, has appointed Lori Krull as president of the newly formed division Weller Management. In her new position, Krull will be responsible for managing operations and growing Weller's third-party management footprint.

Prior to joining Weller, she served as the president of WestWind Property Management, a private firm that owns and manages 4,800 units across six states. Krull also previously served as the director of operations for Greystar, which handled third-party operations for 8,000 units throughout the Tampa Bay area.

Since its launch in 2012, Weller has acquired seven properties and manages more than 1,500 units.

Hillsborough Title buys CornerStone Title
Hillsborough Title has acquired CornerStone Title in Lakewood Ranch. This marks the fourth acquisition in four months for the Tampa Bay-area title agency and its strategic expansion into the Sarasota-Bradenton area.

Mary Howard, founder of CornerStone Title, will continue to serve as relationship manager for the local operation, which will retain the CornerStone Title name.

“In my investigation of the Sarasota/Manatee County area, CornerStone Title's name kept coming up as one of the premier agencies,” Aaron Davis, president and CEO of Hillsborough Title, says in a press release. “Its quality of service, agency marketing, and moral and ethical values are in perfect alignment with our agency's core values. Cornerstone Title has a strong foothold in the Lakewood Ranch area, and is a strategically placed office for the convenience of our Realtor and builder clients.”

With the CornerStone Title acquisition, Hillsborough Title currently has 14 locations in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Polk, Pasco and Manatee counties. It also has more than 110 employees.

AAMP of America buys U.K.'s Armour Automotive
AAMP of America, a Clearwater portfolio company of Audax Private Equity, has acquired Armour Automotive Ltd. from consumer electronics group Armour Group Plc. Headquartered in Hampshire, U.K, Armour Automotive designs and distributes branded in-vehicle connectivity and audio products. Armour Automotive products are sold to installers and retailers in the automotive, agricultural, leisure and commercial markets, through several brands, including Autoleads, iO, Radiomobile and Veba.

AAMP is a supplier of a broad spectrum of car audio integration technologies as well as aftermarket audio accessories and mobile audio/video components.

This is AAMP's sixth add-on acquisition since Audax's initial acquisition of AAMP in November 2006.

“The acquisition of Armour will help build AAMP into a global platform, expand our product offering into the European and OEM markets, and broaden our technical capabilities,” Ron Freeman, CEO of AAMP, says in a press release.

U.S. Army awards Dais Analytic grant for water-cleaning study
Odessa-based advanced materials company Dais Analytic Corp. has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Army for a six-month, Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant.

The grant will pay for Dais Analytic to study the application of its NanoClear water-cleaning process for the needs of field-deployed Army units. The U.S. Army is looking for an energy efficient and low-maintenance method to repurpose the gray water, created by a number of daily military uses, into potable drinking water.

Dais's Aqualyte material has shown the ability to separate most contaminants from water. The company's pilot water site, Dais-East, located at a Pasco County wastewater treatment facility, reportedly played a key role in the company receiving the grant.

DataMentors hires former KBM Group exec
Tampa-based DataMentors LLC has hired Tim Tully as its regional director for the Midwest. Tully has more than 16 years' experience in database marketing and analytics.

Most recently, he served in sales leadership roles at KBM Group and Acxiom. While at KBM Group, Tully served as director of business development, leading new partner and customer acquisition strategies. He is also credited with significantly expanding Acxiom's data services market share.

Transamerica Financial Advisors settles SEC overcharge complaint
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached a settlement with St. Petersburg-based financial services firm Transamerica Financial Advisors over charges it improperly calculated advisory fees and overcharged clients.

According to SEC examinations and a subsequent investigation, Transamerica Financial Advisors offered discounts designed to reduce the fees that clients owed to the firm when they increased their assets in certain investment programs. The firm also permitted clients to combine the values of related accounts in order to get the discounts. However, Transamerica failed to process every combination (aggregation) request by clients and also had conflicting policies on whether representatives were required to pass on to clients the savings from discounts.

“Transamerica failed to properly aggregate client accounts so that they could receive a fee discount, and this systemic breakdown caused retail investors to overpay for advisory services in thousands of client accounts,” Julie Riewe, co-chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's Asset Management Unit, says in a press release.

As a result, Transamerica Financial Advisors failed to discount clients properly over the past several years, according to the SEC.

Transamerica has agreed to settle the SEC's charges. The firm reviewed client records and has reimbursed 2,304 current and former client accounts with refunds and credits totaling $553,624 including interest. Transamerica has also agreed to pay an additional $553,624 penalty.