BBX Capital approved for NYSE listing

Fort Lauderdale-based BBX Capital announced Thursday its common stock has been approved to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

“This is an important milestone for BBX Capital,” said Alan Levan, chairman and CEO of BBX Capital, a diversified real estate and timeshare holdings company.

The stock begins trading under the ticker symbol “BBX” on July 13, the company said. The shares currently trade around $6.50, with a 52-week high of $7.50 and a low of $2.73. They were up 2.2 percent Thursday in over-thecounter trading.

The listing adds BBX Capital to a rare list of NYSE-listed companies in South Florida.

Only a handful of South Florida companies are listed on the venerable stock exchange: prison management company Geo Group in Boca Raton; physicianpractice company Mednax in Sunrise; NextEra Energy in Jupiter, parent of Florida Power & Light Co.; real estate developer Lennar Corp. and cruise line company Carnival Corp., both based in Miami.

Most of the region’s major public companies list their stock on Nasdaq, with some, including Boca Raton-based office supply retailer Office Depot, moving from the NYSE to Nasdaq, in recent years.

“We are pleased to bring BBX Capital ‘back home’ to NYSE,” Levan said, referring to the former BankAtlantic Corp., which he once led. Most of the assets belonging to the Fort Lauderdalebased financial institution, which formerly held a place on the exchange, were sold to BB&T of North Carolina in 2012.

BBX Capital kept some real estate and has since acquired timeshare company Bluegreen Corp. of Boca Raton. It also acquired local candy companies Hoffman’s Chocolate and It’Sugar. The company has assets of $1.4 billion. Levan was named CEO again of BBX Capital in February.

In May, a federal jury cleared Levan and BankAtlantic of all Securities and Exchange Commission charges related to the bank. The SEC accused him of misleading investors during the financial crisis.