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Talk of the bay: As cash flows in, specialty banks line up

By Times Staff
Published January 30, 2008

Chalk up another heavyweight wealth-management player coming to the Tampa Bay area to cater to the growing money elite. Bank of New York Mellon - the name created last year from the merger of Bank of New York (Alexander Hamilton's bank) and Mellon Bank (Andrew Mellon's bank) - today will announce plans to open its first area office in downtown Tampa. The office will be run by veteran wealth manager Ray Ifert, who in turn reports to Florida west coast regional director Paul Dresselhaus (a name wealthy readers may recall from the 1992 opening of the first Northern Trust office in St. Petersburg). It will be Bank of New York Mellon wealth management's 21st office statewide.

Florida confidence recesses further

Floridians are feeling as glum as they did in the recession of the early 1990s. The Florida Consumer Confidence Index fell 4 points this month to 70, its lowest level in 16 years. "Florida is almost certainly in a recession now, and the country is not far behind," said Chris McCarty, who directs the survey for the University of Florida. The Conference Board's national Consumer Index fell a more modest 3 points to 87.9, about the same level as it was in November. McCarty said there is still a chance that the recession will be confined to Florida and a few other states hard-hit by the housing crunch.

It's the end of the road for mapmaker

The real estate slump has steamrolled another victim. St. Petersburg-based MAPSource Inc., a mapmaker that got almost half its business drawing custom maps of Florida and other once fast-growing Southeast metro markets for real estate companies, filed for Chapter 7 liquidation Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Co-owner Gene Ingle, said the company, which has dozens of up-to-date street maps in its cartographers' computers, saw 2006 revenue of nearly $2-million plummet to what would have been $800,000 had it remained open all of 2007. A map of Orlando that cost $150,000 to create generated only $2,000 in sales after the housing collapse.

Last chances

- Claims in the Lou Pearlman and Trans Continental Airlines bankruptcies must be received by today at the bankruptcy court clerk's office in Orlando. Forms are available at blogs.tampa bay.com/money.

- Thursday is the deadline for opening a Florida Prepaid College Fund account at this year's prices. Apply online at www.florida529 plans.com.

[Last modified January 29, 2008, 22:52:14]