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More bay area companies sliding into stock oblivion
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 8, 2000 Plunge your hand into your pocket and pull out some coins. That change will buy you a share in an increasing number of Tampa Bay corporations. More and more publicly traded area companies boast wimpy stock prices that are near, or less than, a buck a share. One dollar is a magic number in the stock market world. Fall below $1 and a company's shares often get a free -- and humiliating -- downhill ride to weaker, wilder and, yes, less legitimate trading markets. Think of it as getting bumped from the major (Nasdaq) to the minor (over-the-counter) leagues. Some stocks don't stop there but end up back in the sandlots, better known in stock trading as the pink sheets. Listings on big stock exchanges bring visibility and cachet, which help attract investors. When share prices drop below $5, it's a warning sign. Falling below $1 is trouble. Staying below $1 is bad news and grounds for delisting from the Nasdaq exchange. If a company's share price falls below a buck for 30 consecutive trading days, Nasdaq sends it a warning and gives it 90 days to bring the price back. If the company succeeds (via a reverse stock split or just better performance, for example) for 10 consecutive trading days, it's relisted. Despite years of a strong economy, more local stocks are hitting the skids, facing downgrades or even delistings by Nasdaq. Thursday, shares of St. Petersburg's Danka Business Systems were bounced from the Nasdaq National Market and started trading on the Nasdaq small cap market. Company shares have traded below $1 a share for months after trading as high as $14 or so in the past year and as high as almost $50 in the past three years. Shares closed Thursday at a measly 50 cents cents. Last month, St. Petersburg's Insurance Management Solutions Group Inc., a struggling spinoff of Bankers Insurance Group, said it expects to be delisted from Nasdaq effective Feb. 22. The company, which provides insurance outsourcing, seems headed for the over-the-counter (OTC) market. Also in November, Tampa-based restaurant chain Shells Seafood Restaurants Inc. was delisted after its stock fell below Nasdaq's minimum requirement for market capitalization (stock price times number of shares). Shares now trade in the OTC market. Former area company Vision Twenty-One was delisted in June. Tampa's pay-phone operator Davel Communications was delisted in May. Last year, St. Petersburg's Precision Systems and Tampa's IMC Mortgage were delisted. In 1998, Plant City's candied-fruit company, Paradise Inc., was dropped by Nasdaq. Still other Tampa Bay companies are in precarious stock positions. Many company shares are hovering just above $1, including chemicals distributor JLM Industries, dentistry management firm Coast Dental Services and telecommunications manufacturer Paradyne Networks. And a few companies trade below $1 but are trying to hang on to their Nasdaq affiliation. They include two in Tampa: 800 Travel Systems and PowerCerv Corp. With all these low-priced shares, a few pockets full of coins can acquire an entire stock portfolio -- or at least several big candy bars. But what happens if a real economic slowdown hits? Short takesEvery year, North Carolina's Charlotte Chamber of Commerce bestows the Citizen of the Carolinas award on an individual who has brought positive recognition to the two states. This week, the award was given to Hugh McColl Jr., chairman and CEO of Bank of America, for his role in making Charlotte a major financial center. Let's hope the award was not premature. The next day in New York City, Bank of America executives said the institution will miss Wall Street's fourth-quarter forecasts because of higher credit costs and weak capital markets activity. Higher loan losses and credit costs are likely in 2001. Wonder what the bank's brand-new talking ATMs whisper about when no one's around? . . . Progress Energy, the new name of the combined CP&L-Florida Progress power company, happened to be the name of a mothballed subsidiary of Florida Progress. But Progress Energy is also the name of a Canadian natural gas and oil exploration business. Click on www.progressenergy.com and you'll end up with the Canadian firm. Click on www.progress-energy.com (note the hyphen) to reach the North Carolina parent of Florida Power. . . . Progress Energy's decision to sell its stake in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays isn't the only way the power company is separating its interests from the baseball team. Florida Progress director Vince Naimoli, the Devil Rays' managing partner, is not among the company directors joining Progress Energy's board. . . . While Tampa Bay and Orlando beat the drum to attract attention to their High-Tech Corridor, other parts of Florida are not napping. There's a 15-page spread promoting South Florida as a technology hub in the Dec. 11 issue of Forbes magazine. It's the first national attempt by the "Internet Coast" to brand the region. . . . Sure, ex-Miami Dolphin coaching legend Don Shula has his chain of fancy Shula's Steak House restaurants. And he signed on earlier this year as spokesman for St. Petersburg's SeaView Video Technology Inc., a maker of underwater video cameras. But now Shula's hyping a South Florida securities firm with its share of problems. In September, state regulators fined Boca Raton's Shochet Securities $7,500 for letting a broker complete transactions without the customer's permission. Last year, an arbitration panel awarded $208,322 to the same customer. And in 1997, Shochet reimbursed Pennsylvania residents $17,855 and paid an administrative fine of $25,000 for selling unregistered securities. . . . - Robert Trigaux can be reached at (727) 893-8405 or trigaux@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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