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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 24, 2009

Travel Team Buys 3 Local Agencies

A Buffalo, N.Y., company acquired three Tampa Bay area travel agencies in a deal that could make The Travel Team one of the nation's 15 largest travel services companies. Terms were not disclosed in the deal completed last week.

The 30 Tampa Bay area employees of Adventure Travel, Carefree Travel and Millennium Travel will remain with the company.

Adventure Travel and Carefree Travel will be renamed The Travel Team/American Express. Millennium Travel will be renamed Millennium Travel/American Express.

The Travel Team is owned by Rich Products Corp. and was ranked the 26th-largest U.S. travel management company by Business Travel News.

Harbinger Investors Leave Media General

The proxy fight between Harbinger Capital Partners and Media General Inc., owner of The Tampa Tribune, is over, and three directors it nominated to Media General's board have not been renominated.

The New York-based hedge fund at one point owned 18.2 percent of Media General's Class A stock and staged a proxy fight with the company over its strategic direction.

Harbinger recently sold nearly all its holdings in the company and now holds "a very small amount if any," said Media General spokesman Raymond Kozakewicz.

AT&T Workers Signal Willingness To Strike

Union workers at AT&T are giving their leaders the authority to call a strike as part of negotiations for a new contract covering 112,500 employees. Several contracts covering workers at the company's landline division expire April 4. AT&T Inc. is trying to make the employees pay more for health care, among other concessions.

The Communications Workers of America says 88 percent of members covered by the contracts voted yes.

Ex-Busch Executive To Run Aquatica

Former Busch Gardens Tampa Bay executive Rick Beddow has been named the top executive of Aquatica, SeaWorld's water park that opened in April in Orlando. Beddow was manager of information technology and director of business analysis and information systems at Busch Gardens.

Grocer Bi-Lo Files Chapter 11

Southern grocery chain Bi-Lo on Monday filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy protection to address an upcoming debt maturity.

Bi-Lo is a privately held company based in Mauldin, S.C., that operates 215 supermarkets in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief in the United States Bankruptcy Court, District of South Carolina.

A staff and wire report

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