Apple helps Jabil grow and other Tampa Bay business news briefs

St. Petersburg-based manufacturing services company Jabil Inc. got the largest percentage of its total revenue from Apple Inc. in its just-ended fiscal year than any other year to date.

Jabil, which supplies components for the iPhone, said in a regulatory filing late Friday that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) accounted for 28 percent of Jabil’s $22.1 billion in total revenue in the fiscal year ended Aug. 31.

That’s an increase from each of the past three fiscal years, when Apple accounted for 24 percent of Jabil’s total revenue; Apple was responsible for even smaller percentages prior to that, regulatory filings show.

Mark Mondello, CEO, Jabil

Mark Mondello, Jabil CEO, has stressed diversification in several recent discussions with analysts. “We believe that the more diversified we become, the more robust the company will be,” Mondello said in a Sept. 25 call with analysts.

Mondello was addressing income and cash flow by product type and product family, a Jabil spokesman said. There are many activities across the greater Apple enterprise and Jabil cannot discuss them, the spokesman said.

Jabil is one of the largest companies headquartered in the Tampa Bay area, and one of the largest employers.

The regulatory filing also showed continued growth in employees and manufacturing space for Jabil.

The company employed 199,000 employees worldwide as of Aug. 31, a 17 percent increase from 170,000 workers a year earlier.

It owned or lease 44.6 million square feet in properties in 29 countries as of Aug. 31, mostly in active manufacturing space. A year earlier, Jabil had 42.1 million square feet of owned or leased space.

There also was an increase in Jabil’s property in the United States — 8.5 million square feet of design, manufacturing, support and storage space, compared to 7.6 million square feet a year earlier.

New hire

Fabio DeSousa, Embarc Collective

Embarc Collective has expanded its staff. Fabio DeSousa has joined the Jeff Vinik-backed initiative as data and insights manager, and he’s tasked with measuring the organization’s impact.

DeSousa is a Tampa native who previously worked at Pack Health, a healthcare startup in Birmingham, Ala. Read more about his decision to return to Tampa here.

Embarc is designed to bring together entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and academic resources in one space. It expects to open in the former District 3 event space in downtown Tampa early next year.

Credit upgrade

The parent company of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Pete got a credit rating upgrade from Moody’s Investors Service.

The exterior of John’s Hopkins All Children’s new researching building, which opened Thursday. All photos by Megan Holmes.

Moody’s upgraded Johns Hopkins Health System’s outstanding bonds from Aa3 to Aa2 earlier this month. Both are investment grade ratings.

A higher credit rating generally means that companies pay a lower interest rate on their debt. About $1.1 billion in Johns Hopkins Health System debt is affected.

Moody’s cited the system’s national and international brand and its strong regional market position as positive factors influencing the upgrade. Challenges include a highly competitive market and elevated financial leverage, when taking into account pension liabilities and operating leases.

Moody’s changed the outlook to stable from positive at the higher rating level. The stable outlook reflects expectations that margins will improve, Moody’s said.

The Moody’s report did not break out any specific information for the St. Pete pediatric hospital, which became part of the Johns Hopkins system in 2011.

Fuel deal

MagneGas Applied Technology Solutions, a Clearwater-based clean tech company, has bought  an independent industrial gas and welding supply distributor in Paris, Texas.

MagneGas paid $1.25 million in cash for Paris Oxygen Co., a regulatory filing said.

The deal will add $1 million in annual sales and further expands the company’s footprint in Texas. MagenGas entered the Texas market earlier this year when it bought Green Arc Supply.

Texas is an extremely robust market for industrial gases, particularly metal cutting fuels, Ermanno Santilli, MagneGas CEO, said in a press release.

The company has grown its monthly revenue base by more than 300 percent in 2018, said Scott Mahoney, chief financial officer.

MagneGas (NASDAQ: MNGA), with a process that converts waste into fuel, had $3.7 million in revenue in 2017.

Lessons learned

Johnson & Johnson got more than trendy hair care and personal products when it bought Vogue International LLC, a Clearwater company, for $3.3 billion in 2016.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), a global health care company based in New Jersey, also learned how to be more nimble, Jorge Mesquita, executive vice president and worldwide chairman for consumer companies, said during an investor conference last month.

Vogue, which makes OGX hair care products, was a $400 million company with 100 people competing successfully against well-known, large players in the beauty space, Mesquita said at the Barclay’s Global Consumer Staples Conference.

“They were a flat, non-hierarchical, nimble organization intensely focused on their consumer and their shoppers and meeting customer needs. And so way we were trying to recreate that, bottle that up and scale it across our entire company,” Mesquita said, according to a transcript posted on SeekingAlpha.

While Johnson and Johnson has scale and scientific capabilities, “I think it’s fair to say we have learned as much from them as they have learned from us.”