GULF COAST
NOVEMBER 2 - NOVEMBER 8, 2012
Business Review FIRST UP:
LESS STRESS Three hospital colleagues take a chance with a new ice cream concept. Page 7
THREE DOLLARS
STORY ON PAGE 9
CHEERS:
Corner Office
TURNING TABLES SEE PAGE 10
An inside look at the workspace of a leading floral business owner.
A group of four partners brings a new attitude to a chain’s ailing locations.
Companies • Trends • Entrepreneurs • CEOs
The Weekly Newspaper for Gulf Coast Business Leaders
Burger Blitz
The man who brought us Domino’s Pizza starts a new food delivery business — high-speed hamburgers. PAGE 12 Nancy DeNike
GULF COAST BUSINESS BUZZ
+ Algenol’s not-sosecret investor Algenol Biofuels in Bonita Springs has been spending big money on research and development of ethanol from algae.
Credit Suisse report that identified the source of the funding. Reliance, headquartered in Mumbai, is the largest privatesector company in India and has interests in petrochemicals, oil refining and gas. The company earned $1.9 billion on revenues of $35.6 billion through the first half of the year. Algenol currently employs 160 people. Its Lee County test facility is currently developing ethanol production from algae with a target cost of less than $1 a gallon.
+ Hulk Hogan, wrestler ... and restaurateur?
It isn’t easy keeping a secret when it involves an entrepreneur as flamboyant as the wrestler Hulk Hogan, aka Terry Gene Bollea. Workers are putting the finishing touches on the redesigned restaurant currently known as Crabby Bill’s at the Bay Harbor Hotel on Tampa’s Courtney Campbell Causeway. The site is abuzz with activity, and trucks and cargo containers have commandeered
one of the parking lots. Hotel employees and contractors officially remain mum on the project, but they admit — hush, hush — that Bollea is involved with the Rocky Point restaurant project, potentially as an investor or owner. “Lawyers are working it out,� a contractor told Coffee Talk Tuesday, with a deal expected to become official in January. Hotelier Ben Mallah bought the hotel in April and has been
See COFFEE TALK page 3
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COFFEE TALK
In an interview with the Business Review last year, Algenol Founder and CEO Paul Woods said at the time that an undisclosed Asian conglomerate had invested close to $100 million in the company refinery test plant in Lee County. Now we know who that investor is. Biofuels Digest, a publication that tracks the industry, reported recently that Reliance Industries Limited, an Asian energy conglomerate, has invested $94 million in Algenol. The publication cited a
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