Roundup: Dynasty cooks for a cause, where the jobs are, local deals amid an M&A slowdown

Today’s roundup has news from Dynasty Financial Partners, Tampa Bay Partnership and Hyde Park Capital.

More than 1,500 people were online Thursday night as Shirl Penney, CEO of Dynasty Financial Partners, and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and his family met in cyberspace to make cocktails and cooked dinner with Marc Forgione, restaurateur and the winner of season three of Iron Chef in 2010.

The cooking demonstration raised money for The Kind Mouse, a St. Petersburg nonprofit that provides foods for families and children, and for the Forgione Employee Fund, to help the employees at Forgione’s restaurants who are out of work because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dynasty, which provides wealth management and technology platforms for independent financial advisory firms, relocated its headquarters to St. Petersburg just over a year ago.

“I cannot say thank you enough for everything you do for the city of St. Petersburg. We love having you here. You have taken our hearts over so quickly,” Kriseman said as he raised a toast to Penney and his team.

Penney, “appearing live from my kitchen in St. Petersburg” encouraged everyone to live tweet using the hashtag #cookingforacause. St. Pete’s First Lady, Kerry Kriseman, did so, showing off the dinner she prepared.

The finished product! @Kriseman and I learned so much from @MarcForgione. Thanks to you and @DynastyFP for coordinating a great fundraising event for @TheKindMouse and Marc’s employees. #cookingforacause pic.twitter.com/eCKwE2CdTD

— KKrisemanStPete (@KKriseman) April 16, 2020

It’s no surprise that hiring activity is down amid the pandemic but some industry sectors are hiring, according to the most recent Covid-19 update from the Tampa Bay Partnership.

In Friday’s report, the Partnership said:

• Online job postings in Tampa Bay are down 25% from the same time last year, with Pinellas and Hillsborough counties experiencing the sharpest declines in hiring activity.
• COVID-19 is creating opportunity in certain healthcare-related occupations, but it’s causing sharp declines in others impacted by stay-at-home directives.
• Decreased job opportunity in the occupations impacted by stay-at-home directives may be disproportionately impacting female and minority workers.

The occupations seeing the biggest increase in online job postings are respiratory therapists (up 62.7 percent), healthcare social workers (up 11.7 percent) and medical equipment preparers (up 7.7 percent). Bartender job postings are down 25.5 percent, childcare workers down 29.9 percent, and hairstylists and cosmetologists are down 31.7 percent.

Two local deals were some of the larger M&A deals in the first quarter of 2020, a new report from Hyde Park Capital said.

The Q1 2020 mergers and acquisitions report listed the $1 billion sale of AmeriLife in Clearwater to private equity firm Thomas H. Lee and the $730 million purchase of The IRONMAN Group in Tampa by privately-owned family business Advance as among the top private equity deals of the quarter.

Despite several noteworthy deals, M&A transaction volume and value was largely negative during the quarter, because of the pandemic’s impact.

“The pandemic has in some cases put a damper on in-process transactions and suspended processes for early-stage transactions. While an exact timeline for return to normalcy in the market is unclear, the general approximation amongst both buyers and targets seems to be between one and six months, mostly dependent on slowing infection rates,” Hyde Park Capital said.