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ASSET ACCEPTANCE ADDS JOBS: Asset Acceptance, a financial services firm specializing in debt collections and debt management, is adding 311 employees at its regional office in Brandon. Asset now has about 200 employees in Brandon's FirstPark. The private company based in Warren, Mich., will nearly double its Brandon workspace to 53,000 square feet. It has qualified for state tax incentives for the $3.75-million construction project, which is scheduled to be completed by February. Most of the new jobs it has promised to create over the next three years will be debt collectors earning average wages of at least $35,000 yearly.
STORMS JOINS PORT BOARD: Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms will join the Tampa Port Authority governing board next month. Storms replaces County Commissioner Pat Frank, who has served as the commission's representative on the port board for three years.
SYKES SHUTS OREGON CENTER: Sykes Enterprises, a Tampa company that handles telephone customer service for clients via a global network of call centers, is closing another U.S. center. Opened in 1995, the Klamath Falls, Ore., call center reportedly employed about 750 workers at its peak but is down to 80 now because of lack of demand. After the Jan. 22 closing, Sykes will have just 13 call centers left in the United States. More and more of the company's clients prefer to have their calls handled more cheaply at Sykes call centers in countries like India, Costa Rica or the Philippines.
GOODYEAR CUTS 1,200 MORE: Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is cutting 1,200 more jobs worldwide to help the nation's largest tiremaker cut costs as it battles rising prices for rubber and other raw material. The job cuts are in addition to 2,600 jobs already eliminated and plans to cut 1,100 positions when the company closes a tire plant in Huntsville, Ala., next month. The company employs 92,000 people overall. The tiremaker also said Thursday it was cooperating with a federal Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into the company's earnings restatement from 1998 through 2002.
FIRM TARGETS MEDICAID RECIPIENTS: PhyTrust, a physicians group management firm, has expanded from Miami-Dade and Broward counties into the Tampa Bay area. The Sunrise company will manage a network of mostly minority doctors who will care for underserved Medicaid patients in the bay area and beyond. More than 20,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in Pasco, Hillsborough, Manatee, Hardee, Polk and Pinellas counties are eligible for PhyTrust's services. The network is an extension of PhyTrust's MediPass pilot program, in which network doctors are given incentives to keep patients well and use nontraditional methods such as house calls, unrestricted referrals and walk-in appointments. The new Tampa administrative office is staffed by five. About 115 physicians will serve the Central Florida network.
COMMON CAUSE JOINS PHONE FRAY: Common Cause Florida recommended Thursday that the Florida Public Service Commission reject Verizon, Sprint and BellSouth's applications to increase rates. The citizens lobbying group argued that the companies have failed to show that the rate hikes will benefit residential customers or that competition for local phone services will increase. The companies want to raise their local basic rates by 30 to 90 percent over the next two years in exchange for cuts in instate long-distance access fees.
EARNINGSThe Walt Disney Co.: A strong movie and home video slate and gains in its broadcast and cable networks boosted fourth quarter profits for Disney. The results easily beat the 15-cents-a-share expectations of analysts. Disney's theme parks continue to be hit by declining tourism. Revenue at the theme parks declined 1 percent to $1.65-billion.
Dillard's Inc.: The Little Rock, Ark., department store chain reported a $15.8-million loss that amounted to $14-million less than analysts had forecast.
The company will continue reducing inventory of branded apparel it considers overdistributed, such as the recently announced cutbacks of Tommy Hilfiger.