Few locally based firms posted gains
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Despite a stellar year for the overall stock market, only six companies headquartered in Palm Beach and Martin counties posted gains in 2016. Seacoast Banking Corp. of Stuart was the big winner, soaring 49.6 percent for the year (through Wednesday’s trading). The regional bank has benefited from a variety of tailwinds — Florida’s recovering economy and real estate market, the specter of rising interest rates and hopes for less onerous regulation of banks under President-elect Donald Trump. Seacoast also has been the subject of talk of a potential sale to a larger bank that covets Seacoast’s market share. Ranking No. 2 and 3 in 2016 share-price performance were Wellington aerospace firms KLX Inc. and BE Aerospace. Driven by the announcement of a merger with an Iowa company, BE Aerospace soared nearly 42 percent. And KLX, a spinoff of BE Aerospace, rose 48 percent. NextEra Energy, the region’s largest company, rose 14 percent, not including dividends. loser was Rennova Health, a West Palm Beach-based provider of urine testing to drug rehab facilities. Its shares plummeted nearly 94 percent amid all sorts of red flags — evaporating revenue, a delisting notice from the Nasdaq, “going concern” warnings in its regulatory filings, a missed rent payment to the landlord at its West Palm Beach headquarters, turnover among top executives. Seeking to right the ship, the company in December raised $12 million through a preferred stock offering, then paid $1 million to buy a rural hospital in Tennessee out of bankruptcy. Other big losers include Emergent Capital of Boca Raton, down nearly 70 percent, and Boca Raton drug company TherapeuticsMD, off 42 percent. Among large companies, Office Depot was off 18 percent for the year after federal regulators blocked its proposed merger with Staples.
Stocks have jumped significantly since the Nov. 8 election, spurred by investor optimism that a change in the White House will lead to lower taxes, less regulation and a wave of spending in sectors such as Investors in Seacoast Banking and KLX are celebrating, but roughly two-thirds of local company shares were losers this year.