Talk of the bay: Forecast runs MarineMax's stock aground
By Times staff, wires
Published April 13, 2007
Investors pummeled MarineMax Inc.'s stock Thursday after the Clearwater boat distributor reduced its fiscal 2007 earnings forecast by as much as 67 percent. The stock price of the company, which bills itself as the "nation's largest recreational boat and yacht retailer," fell 14 percent to close at an eight-month low of $19.71 per share. That's steep enough to rank as Wall Street's eighth-worst daily performer. MarineMax's recognition of the boating industry's market woes were late in coming, at least compared to its competitors.
OSI picks company vet to run Outback
This time, it went with a trusted insider. OSI Restaurant Partners Inc. on Thursday named longtime employee Jeff Smith the president of its Outback Steakhouse chain. Smith trained at Outback's inaugural Tampa restaurant in 1989 and rose through the ranks until joining affiliate Bonefish Grill in 2004. Curt Glowacki, Smith's predecessor as Outback president, resigned in March after just three months at the company.
Yet another sign roof is caving in
Foreclosure activity shows few signs of letting up. Florida, with 27,092 homes, ranked second only to California in March in foreclosure "activity" - a measure of homes encountering a notice of default, a notice of foreclosure sale, or homes actually foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank. So says Bargain Network (bargain.com), which tracks foreclosure activity nationwide. March's foreclosure activity was up 33 percent from February. Most states reported double-digit increases in the month-to-month comparison. Bargain Network said Florida and California together accounted for 35 to 40 percent of all foreclosures in the nation for March, and "these two influential states contributed close to 37 percent of the total nationwide activity for the first quarter of 2007."
Market stagnant for home lenders
"Right now the markets are not conducive to financial institutions that own big mortgage companies." That's the word from Wachovia Corp. chief Ken Thompson, who finds he is busy trying to defend his bank's $25-billion purchase last year of Golden West Financial (we know them here as World Savings Bank). Thompson acknowledged in remarks to the American Banker newspaper that buying a company big in mortgage lending at the end of the housing boom is, well, a tough sell.