Corporate report

Bloomin' Brands completes sale of Roy's restaurants to United Ohana
Bloomin' Brands Inc. of Tampa completed the sale of its interests in the Roy's concept to United Ohana LLC, an affiliate of Sunil Dharod's SSCP Management Inc.

United Ohana now owns and operates the Roy's concept. Dharod, president and CEO of Apple Texas and Apple Houston, is the owner and operator of 69 Applebee's restaurants in Texas.

Lazard acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Bloomin' Brands on the sale of Roy's.

Bloomin' Brands Inc. (symbol: BLMN; recent price: $25) is one of the largest casual dining restaurant companies in the world with a portfolio of restaurant concepts, including Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar. The company owns and operates about 1,500 restaurants in 48 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and 20 countries, some of which are franchise locations.

Gettel finance director appointed GM of Gettel Hyundai of Lakewood
Darrin Cummings was named general manager of Gettel Hyundai of Lakewood. The Hyundai store is currently located on First Street in Bradenton, and will be moving to its new home this month. It will be located next door to its sister store Toyota of Lakewood, which is located at 5959 E. State Rd 64. Bradenton.

Cummings was previously the finance director for the Gettel Management Group.

United Insurance Holdings closes on acquisitions
United Insurance Holdings Corp., a property and casualty insurance holding company, closed on its purchase of Family Security Holdings LLC. Family Security Holdings has two subsidiaries: Family Security Insurance Co., a property and casualty insurer in Hawaii and Louisiana, and Family Security Underwriters LLC, which handles the administrative and marketing services for Family Security Insurance.

UPC Insurance acquired all the outstanding shares and other ownership rights of Family Security Holdings for $9 million worth of stock. The St. Petersburg company also agreed to pay a contingency fee of 3% (in stock) of the Family Security Insurance policies renewed within 12 months of the sale.

UPC Insurance writes and services property and casualty insurance in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas.

St. Joseph's Hospital-South opens doors, treating patients
Southern Hillsborough County's first nonprofit hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital-South, has opened.

The $225 million hospital, located on 72 acres in Riverview, is credited with creating 500 jobs. With 360,000 square feet, it features 90 private patient rooms, 22 private observation rooms, 32 beds in the emergency department, six operating suites and a 16-bed intensive care unit. The facility also houses eight labor and delivery rooms and a 14-bed mother/baby unit.

University of South Florida researchers announce test for 'fishy' seafood
Scientists at the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science say they have developed a handheld sensor capable of quickly detecting fraudulent seafood species claims. A paper describing the new technology appears in the current issue of Food Control.

The QuadPyre RT-NASBA is able to test seafood samples to compare its cellular RNA to a particular fish species.

“Using the hand-held device ... requires fewer than 45 minutes for completion and can be performed entirely outside of the lab,” paper co-author and USF Professor John Paul says in a press release. “Some past assay procedures could take hours, even days to identify samples.”

According to the paper's lead author and College of Marine Science graduate, Robert Ulrich, fraud involving grouper is prevalent locally because it is the third most economically valuable seafood product in Florida and there are commercial quotas on grouper catches. On top of that, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows 64 species of fish to be labeled as “grouper.”

“The demand for grouper in the U.S. is so strong that it cannot be met by the harvesting of domestic species alone,” Ulrich says in a press release. “In 2012, over 4,000 metric tons of foreign grouper, worth $33.5 million, were imported into the U.S. This mass quantity of imported grouper creates opportunities for fraud, which can lead consumers to pay more for lesser valued seafood species and may allow importers to avoid paying tariffs.”

The scientists believe that the portable QuadPyre version of RT-NASBA is accurate enough to detect grouper substitution on cooked fish at a restaurant, even when breading or sauces mask the samples.
A USF spinoff company, Oldsmar-based PureMolecular LLC, is commercializing the technology under the name GrouperChek. Tests for other commercially important seafood species are being developed, but they already exist for non-seafood problematic species such as karenia brevis (red tide-causing organism), noroviruses and enteroviruses.