Less than two years after Burger King was sold to private investors, another Miami-Dade-based national restaurant chain is going private. It was announced today that Angelo, Gordon & Co.’s Private Equity Group will pay $296 million for Benihana, Inc. and take the chain private…
For the first time, Facebook will put its stock up for public sale today. The company will instantly land at least $16 billion, pushing its value to well over $100 billion. Wunderkind CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be the obvious winner, but hundreds of other investors are also in line for…
2011 was a banner year for tourism in Miami-Dade as records were set not only for the number of tourists who stayed overnight in the county, but also for how much money they left behind. According to numbers released today by the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau 13.4 million…
The Miami economy got a shock today when the county’s largest private employer, the University of Miami, filed a notice that it plans to lay off 800 employees from its medical school. The move comes two weeks after university president Donna Shalala said the medical school was planning on cutting…
Thirty-three-year-old Pompano Beach resident Gasmy Joseph wears a supertall Mohawk. About a year ago, an epiphany struck when he wanted to spread the word about a buddy’s birthday party: Why not advertise it on the hairdo? In terms of innovation, Thomas Edison’s light bulb now looks like a piece of…
No longer can you count on finding a sweet deal on rent in one of those quickly filling-up high rises. 24/7 WallStreet reports that rents in Miami are skyrocketing. In fact, in the past year Miami saw the third highest rise in average rent of any major metro area, and…
When Alan Lara touched down in American Samoa, he was looking for a fresh start. Bluesky Communications, a subsidiary of Miami-based eLandia, had agreed to pay the Mexican engineer and his fiancée to move to the tiny U.S. territory from their home in Guatemala. But months later Lara was abruptly…
Last week, Riptide received a mysterious complaint from a Brazilian reader who had an intriguing allegation: Located in 2800 Biscayne Boulevard — the building that, until last year, housed Miami New Times office — a company called Leader Perfume was ripping off South American customers, he claimed.We decided to investigate…
Deep Throat, the pioneering 1972 porno film, was partially shot in various places throughout Miami-Dade, and now an infamous mansion that was the setting for two of the film’s most infamous scenes is for sale. It can be yours for the price of $1.75 million…
Like many small business owner on Florida, Paul Hodges has been struggling over the past few years. His Cocoa Beach motel, the Fawlty Towers, has seen its profits plummet. So, he’s come up with a new plan to jolt his bottom line. Starting tomorrow the Fawlty Towers will now be…
The Gordon Gekko of roundball is apparently downsizing. Slicked-back Miami Heat president and former coach Pat Riley and his wife Christine just sold their appropriately gaudy Coral Gables property. They bought the 180 Arvida Parkway mansion, which is 13,000 square feet on a two-acre beachfront peninsula, in 1996 for $6.3…
The next time you order a Domino’s pizza, pity your humble delivery man. It’s a precarious and potentially deadly world out there for your average door-to-door pie slinger. Take Francisco Prieto. The then-66-year-old Domino’s employee was sent on a run to Liberty City around midnight in October 2010. No sooner…
Here’s the good news: The gap between how much women and men make in Florida is actually pretty low compared to the rest of the country, and the Sunshine State actually has the 11th narrowest gap in the nation.Here’s the bad news: That gap still means a Florida woman makes…
Hey, pssst, I’ve got a plot of beachfront property in beautiful Hialeah to sell you for just $10K. Yeah, I’m just gonna need your social and bank account info, and it’s as good as yours.Yes, to no one’s surprise 247WallSt.com has ranked our sunny state of Florida number one in…
Gaston E. Cantens, a former advisory board member for Belen Jesuit Preparatory School who used his prominence in Miami’s Cuban-American community to target the elderly, has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to running a $135 million Ponzi scheme…
Big drama at two of Miami’s best known hotels this weekend, as two iconic resorts had some dramatic shake-ups on the business side. The owners of the Eden Roc, a Miami Beach classic, are taking their management company to court. Meanwhile, the owners of the Setai, a member of the…
Looks like Star Island is losing one of its longtime celebrity residents. Comedian and talk show host Rosie O’Donnell has put her 11,000-square-foot spread on the market for a whopping $19.5 million. The real estate move comes just days after O’Donnell’s talk show on Oprah’s OWN network was cancelled…
Cecilia “C.C.” Holloman arrived in Miami around 2001 with an impressive resumé. She was an ordained minister, a published Christian author, and a “community builder” in the Clinton administration. Over the next decade, her organizations would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants, including $400,000 for a job…
Genting Group shocked South Florida when it bought up the Miami Herald’s current bayfront property and unveiled its ostentatious plans for Resort World Miami. The proposed project looked like a futuristic, alien city, with 10 million square feet of space, two hotel towers, two condo towers, a giant convention center,…
Cristiano Piquet has it all: fast cars, luxury boats, beautiful women, and a booming business. Since 2005, Piquet Realty has sold hundreds of millions of dollars of prime Miami condos to his fellow Brazilians. His handsome, freckled face has graced business segments on CNN and Al Jazeera. He even has…
We don’t need to tell anyone who’s attempted to park at Aventura Mall that the place is busy. It’s so busy, in fact, that it’s actually America’s second most visited shopping mall. The only mall more crowded than it actually has an indoor amusement park, so there’s no shame in…
Online shopping was a boon to buyers who sometimes felt a little embarrassment when buying certain products. The web’s anonymity may have made them feel like no one could judge them for, say, buying an industrial-sized vat of KY Jelly. But the mere presence of social media logos like Twitter…
