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By Times Staff
Published February 15, 2005

TAMPA'S OFFICE VACANCY DROPS: Tampa's office vacancy rate has dropped to 17.9 percent, a two-year low, according to a report Monday by Advantis Real Estate Services. Through 2004, vacancies dropped from 20 percent to 15.6 percent for the highest-end, or Class A, space. Tampa's office market turned in its best performance since 2000, bolstered by three straight quarters of solid net absorption, a sharp drop in sublease space and little new construction. Among the few major construction projects that began last year is a $26.6-million building for the Federal Bureau of Investigation being developed in Westshore by Highwood Properties.

LOCAL "DO NOT CALL' SUIT FILED: The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services on Thursday sued a Pinellas County business accused of calling six people whose names appear on the state's "do not call" no-solicitation list. Window Solutions Plus Inc. of Seminole is accused of making nine calls to the six residents in 2004. One of the six residents was called three times in one month, the suit said. The state seeks an injunction from a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge barring the company from calling anyone on the list and fines of up to $10,000 for each of the calls. The state has collected or obtained $1-million in judgments against companies for calling people on the no-solicitation list. David Wheless, a partner in Window Solutions, denied the allegations, saying the company has had few complaints.

OFFICEMAX CEO RESIGNS: Retailer OfficeMax Inc. announced the resignation Monday of CEO Christopher Milliken and acknowledged misstating 2004 results amid an accounting scandal in the latest setback for the struggling office products retailer. The company also said it had fired two more employees, increasing to six the number terminated for sending $3.3-million in bogus bills to a supplier over a two-year period.

AIG GETS SUBPOENAS: Insurance giant American International Group Inc. said Monday it has received subpoenas from New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission related to nontraditional insurance products and "certain assumed reinsurance transactions." The company said it will cooperate with the probe.

EBBERS TRIAL SUSPENDED: A federal judge suspended the fraud trial of former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers until Wednesday, postponing the crucial cross-examination of the government's star witness, former finance chief Scott Sullivan. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones did not explain her decision, but told jurors not to draw any conclusions from it.

MOBILE PHONE MUSIC PLAYERS COMING: Mobile phone makers are going after would-be iPod buyers by building high-quality players into their handsets. Sony Ericsson said Monday it would soon market music-player mobiles under its parent's Walkman brand, drawing on the music catalog of a sister company, Sony BMG, the world's No. 2 record company. Nokia Corp., the world's leading phone maker, announced an alliance with Microsoft Corp. to allow mobile subscribers to load music from a PC onto their phones.

COURT APPROVES TRUMP REORGANIZATION: A bankruptcy court Monday blessed an agreement between Donald Trump and shareholders of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. on reorganizing the company. Many of the objections raised over the plan, which shareholders viewed as enriching majority stakeholder Donald Trump, were addressed in an amended version of the plan filed Sunday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J.

T-BILL RATES RISE: Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Monday's auction to the highest levels in more than three years. The Treasury Department auctioned $20-billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 2.540 percent, up from 2.480 percent last week. Another $17-billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 2.760 percent, up from 2.710 percent.

[Last modified February 15, 2005, 08:01:10]