Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, May 11, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 126 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Black Knight IPO at finish line Company awaiting final approval from SEC
Fidelity National Financial Inc.’s latest spinoff is almost ready to go. During the company’s conference call last week to discuss first-quarter earnings, Executive Chairman Bill Foley said the company hopes to launch the initial public offering of Black Knight Financial Services Inc. this week. The company was awaiting final approval of its prospectus from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Foley said. “We’re really right at the finish line on the IPO,” he said. Black Knight is a mortgage technology and analytics company that was formerly part of Lender Processing Services Inc.,
Foley
Expansion coming for Downtown candy store
another company that was once spun off from Fidelity as an independent company. Fidelity reacquired LPS last year. Black Knight will not be an independent company. Fidelity has not said how many Black Knight shares will be sold to the public, but it has said it will retain a majority ownership after the IPO. Black Knight reported last week in an SEC filing that it had
revenue of $227.2 million and net income of $14.5 million in the first quarter. Fidelity, which is mainly a title insurance company, reported adjusted core first-quarter earnings of 37 cents a share, up from 22 cents last year. Revenue rose 15.3 percent to $1.58 billion. “First quarter was a great start to 2015. While this was a strong first quarter in our title business, we expect higher pre-tax margins as we enter the second and third quarters,” Foley said. “We also believe that a publicly traded Black Knight can be a source of further value creation for all of our FNF shareholders,” he said.
Fidelity looks to spin off J. Alexander’s
Black Knight is not the only Fidelity spinoff in the works. It is also working to complete the spin-off of restaurant company J. Alexander’s in the third quarter this year, company officials said last week. Fidelity last year created a tracking stock called Fidelity National Financial Ventures, or FNFV, to represent the non-real estate-related investments held by the company. As Foley said in FNFV’s quarterly conference call last week, Basch... Continued Page A-7
Ready to build a new vision
CNBC host buying two buildings to ease crunch at Sweet Pete’s It didn’t take long for the owners of Sweet Pete’s to know they were in a tight spot, but in a good way. Co-owner Allison Behringer said the candy retailer was doubling revenue projections almost immediately after opening in December. By the time first-quarter results came in, it became clear the business had outgrown the building at 400 N. Hogan St., a space it shares with The Candy Apple Cafe & Cocktails restaurant. “We are far exceeding what we thought we could do,” Behringer said Saturday. They needed more space for candymaking classes, private events and retail sales. The extra space also would keep the two businesses from being “so on top of each other.” That’s where having a partner like Marcus Lemonis comes in handy. The CEO of Camping World and star of CNBC’s “The Profit” has verbal agreements to buy the buildings at 424 and 502 N. Hogan St. to accommodate the growing business. He also plans to purchase the parking lot between Sweet Pete’s and 424 N. Hogan St. and will fund the renovations, according to a news release. The sales prices will become public when the deals are completed. Duval County Sweet Pete’s... Continued Page A-11
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Photo by Max Marbut
By Marilyn Young Editor
Jake Gordon, Downtown Vision’s new executive director, begins today leading the nonprofit urban advocacy organization.
Learning players, raising money top priorities
By Max Marbut Staff Writer An outsider with an inside view. Or an insider with an outside view. That was the duality Jake Gordon talked about Friday morning over a cup of coffee at Chamblin’s Uptown Bookstore & Café. He was making those observations two blocks from the offices of Downtown Vision Inc., where he went to work as executive director for the first time this morning. Formerly executive director of the Business Improvement District in Camden, N.J., Gordon has ties to North Florida
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through his wife, Dana, a University of Florida graduate who grew up in Gainesville. The Gordons and their two children, Alex, 4, and Samantha, 2, traveled here at least four times a year to visit Dana’s parents. The couple also lived in Atlantic Beach for eight months in 2007 before Gordon took the job with the Camden Special Services District. Flying to Jacksonville in March to meet DVI’s board of directors and interview for the job brought a new insight. “For me, going away and then coming back, it’s amazing how much more metro-
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politan Jacksonville has become. It’s more like a city,” he said. Managing a Business Improvement District is a second career for Gordon. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he was attracted to the legal profession because he wanted to understand how rules are made and to be part of the process. But after three years representing clients as a litigator in a large Los Angeles law firm, it was time for a different focus. “I wanted to build something I could be proud of and cities always fascinated me,” Gordon said. DVI... Continued Page A-11
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