Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Talk of the bay: Coast Bank shareholders okay merger

By Times Staff
Published November 27, 2007

Shareholders of Coast Financial Holdings, the Bradenton parent company of Coast Bank, voted overwhelmingly Monday to merge next month with First Banks of St. Louis. Almost 72 percent of shares were cast in favor of the acquisition that was forced upon Coast after customers defaulted on hundreds of construction loans worth more than $50-million. Most of the defaults were tied to the collapse of St. Petersburg builder Construction Compliance Inc. Coast plans to convert its branches across the region to First Banks as early as Dec. 7, with a formal closing set for later that month.

Tampa firm teams up with Ashcroft

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has teamed up with J. Patrick (Rick) Michaels, chief executive of Tampa's Communication Equity Associates, to form a partnership focusing on the homeland security industry. AshcroftCEA, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Tampa, will provide strategic consulting and financing to midsized companies in niches like port security. Michaels, who met Ashcroft through his work with the Republican Party's finance committee, has spent 30 years doing media and telecom deals but sees a future in homeland security. "It's an industry that's not going to go away," he said.

A new type of online community

Facebook, Orkut and hi5 junkies, wanna strike out on your own? Tampa-based Web Piston just released a Web application that allows people to build their own online communities. Frupee claims to be different from super-store type communities such as Facebook and My Space and is ideal for hobbies, businesses, family and friends, clubs, sports, nonprofit organizations, schools, artists and just about anything in between, a release said. And here's the kicker. It's free.

Electronic records for health is closer

The dream of creating electronic health records moved a bit closer to reality this month with the launch of a pilot program involving Medicaid beneficiaries in Leon County. The demonstration project is a small part of a $308-million contract Florida signed last year with EDS, a Plano, Texas, information technology company that is developing an electronic claims processing and tracking system for the state's Medicaid program. The new system is expected to go live in 2008.

.tampabay.com

All about housing

James Thorner digs deeper into bay area housing news in his (Un)Real Estate blog at blogs.tampabay.com/realestate.

[Last modified November 26, 2007, 23:31:47]