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Briefs: Walter chair has 75-to-1 shot at buying Cubs

Walter Industries chairman Michael Tokarz still has a shot at buying the Chicago Cubs, but the Chicago Tribune says his chances are slim.

By Times Staff
Published March 9, 2008

Walter chair has 75-to-1 shot at buying Cubs

Walter Industries chairman Michael Tokarz still has a shot at buying the Chicago Cubs, but the Chicago Tribune says his chances are slim. An article last week listed 10 potential suitors for the perennial underdogs, with odds ranging from 7-to-1 (for Chicago businessman John Canning, who is friendly with Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig) to 500-to-1 (for comedian and suburban Chicago native Bill Murray). Tokarz, an Illinois native and former Kohlberg Kravis Roberts executive who joined Tampa-based Walter's board in 1987, was rated a 75-to-1 shot. The Cubs were put on sale nearly a year ago as part of a deal by real estate kingpin Sam Zell to acquire the Tribune Co., which owns the club and the newspaper.

Judgment issued in stock price case

A U.S. judge issued a default judgment against a partnership accused of trying to manipulate the share prices of companies - including one controlled by Tampa Bay Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer - by making bogus offers to buy them. U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in New York fined Hollingsworth Rothwell & Roxford, or HRR, $900,000, according to a judgment dated Feb. 29 but made public last week in a report by Reuters. HRR founder Theodore Roxford, in an e-mail to Reuters, said he was "too busy right now to even think about the silly SEC stuff!" Roxford hit the radar of the St. Petersburg Times in 2003 when he made an unsolicited offer by fax and e-mail for Glazer's Zapata, which made sausage casings and processed fish meal among other things, and promised to pay $108-million. This deal came on the heels of a Roxford offer to buy giant Sony Corp. for $79-billion. Both offers were ignored and nothing came of them. Roxford's given name is Lawrence David Niren, which he changed in 1995, according to an SEC complaint, and he has used other aliases, including Theodore Vakil and Edward Pastorini.

Here's your chance to make port board

Gov. Charlie Crist or his people apparently weren't wowed by the latest candidates for the Tampa Port Authority's governing board. Word came back from Tallahassee last week that Crist wants a panel of maritime business officials to come up with another choice to replace retiring board member Joe Hartley. The group already sent up three: maritime lawyer Allen Von Spiegelfeld of Fowler White, Arthur Savage of shipping agency A.R. Savage & Son and Janet Kovach, formerly with phosphate producer CF Industries. Interested in applying for the unpaid position? Contact Lynda Fleming at Holland & Knight LLP, 100 N Tampa St., Suite 4100, Tampa, FL 33602, or call (813) 227- 6577.

New boss takes on Bank of Tampa

There's been a shift in the Force. News reports indicate veteran Bank of Tampa chief Jerry Divers, after more than a quarter century at the helm, is handing over one of Tampa's most venerable financial institutions to another. William O. "Bill" West has been named CEO and president.

[Last modified March 7, 2008, 22:52:53]