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CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: YOUR INSIGHT
THE MATHIS REPORT
From Daily ‘cruising along’Record to ‘survival’ JACKSONVILLE
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KAREN BRUNE MATHIS EDITOR
FIS submits building permit plans for new HQ
The Jacksonville-based financial services tech firm is expected to break ground in May.
Special to the Daily Record
Bryan Croft, president and CEO of HC Brands, said his sales reports “went from plus 40% on March 10 to minus 30% on March 11, almost a 70% swing overnight.”
HC Brands CEO Bryan Croft, who laid off 30 of his 100 workers, is approved for an SBA loan and is preparing to “run even faster than ever.” BY SCOTT SAILER STAFF WRITER
Bryan Croft, president and CEO of HC Brands, formerly Holmes Custom, said the pandemic has put his company in the mindset of survival mode in the past two or three weeks. “We are going to get through this but we have to survive now,” Croft said. HC Brands, a 66-year-old company head-
quartered at 2021 St. Augustine Road in San Marco East, designs, manufactures and sells personalized products. It has evolved over the past 15 years from brick-and-mortar to an e-commerce company, he said. HC Brands, which started as a stamp and sign company, has fulfillment centers in Jacksonville; Salem, Massachusetts; and Austin, Texas. Croft bought the company from his parents in 2009. It has brands specializing in stamps, signs, name tags, wall decals, corporate kits, notaries, promotional products and personalized gifts. He and his team of more than 100 employees were “cruising along, growing our business at about 35% to 40% a year and then March 11, I
KEEPING CLOSE – FROM A DISTANCE Since March 13, city event venues, stores, restaurants, malls, entertainment centers, churches and businesses shut down and laid off workers or sent them home to telecommute to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Daily Record will report how local small business owners are dealing with the imposed social isolation.
Fidelity National Information Services Inc. submitted building-permit plans to the city April 16 for construction of its $145 million riverfront world headquarters and garage along Riverside Avenue. The Jacksonville-based financial services technology company submitted the plans a day after the Downtown Investment Authority awarded development rights for the project. DIA CEO Lori Boyer said April 8 that FIS would start construction in May. The permit application shows FIS intends to build the foundations and structures of its 12-story, 376,414-square-foot headquarters office tower and eight-story, 552,693-squarefoot parking garage with 1,647 parking spaces on 4.5 acres at 347 Riverside Ave. in Brooklyn. The property is along the St. Johns River. No contractor is listed. An air-conditioned garage elevator lobby will connect to
SEE CROFT, PAGE 2
SEE MATHIS, PAGE 2
Mutual agreement calls off Stein Mart buyout Stein Mart Inc. on April 16 called off plans for a buyout by a private equity firm amid the “unpredictable economic conditions” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Jacksonville-based fashion retailer and Kingswood Capital Management L.P. said the merger was terminated by mutual agreement. “While we both believed in the benefits of the proposed transaction, we have mutually concluded after careful consideration that given the current environment and significant uncertainty, it would not be prudent to continue to pursue the transaction,” the companies said in a joint statement.
VOLUME 107, NO. 109 • ONE SECTION