Amusement
Adventure City amusement park is adding a roller coaster that’s scheduled to open late summer. Rewind Racers, a $2 million coaster, will move both backward and forward. The two-acre park straddles the Stanton and Anaheim city line.
Apparel
Lake Forest-based private label apparel maker 3D Industries said it partnered with a glove factory in the Fujian province of China that will be used to make gloves for snow racing and other uses. 3D specializes in technical apparel for the snow, outdoor and motorsports industries.
Automotive
Costa Mesa-based Fisker Automotive Inc. named Roger Brown interim president of the luxury hybrid automaker. Fisker parent Wanxiang America Corp. confirmed the appointment. Wanxiang, based in Elgin, Ill., and part of China auto parts company Wanxiang Group Corp., bought Fisker in a bankruptcy auction for $149.2 million in a deal approved in February.
Finance
Opus Bank priced its initial public offering of common stock at $30 per share. The Irvine-based bank planned to offer about 5.1 million shares, including 2.8 million from the bank and 2.3 million from shareholders. Opus was expected to get about $76.3 million in net proceeds from the IPO and said it plans to use the money to support expansion in the western U.S. and to contribute to its Opus Community Foundation. Opus is the largest Orange County-based bank, with $3.7 billion in assets as of the end of last year. It had $2.9 billion in loans and $2.7 billion in deposits.
Orange County companies drew $188.2 million in venture capital funding in the first quarter, a 29% increase from the year-earlier period. It was the most in a first quarter since 2011 and was spread over 16 businesses, compared with 11 last year, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource. Healthcare companies accounted for six of the investments and about 71% of the dollar volume. OC-based investors that made local investments in the latest quarter were Frost Data Capital in San Juan Capistrano and Versant Venture Management LLC in Newport Beach.
Healthcare
Irvine-based Allergan Inc. said it acquired a dermal filler candidate from Menlo Park-based incubator TauTona Group. Financial terms were undisclosed. The candidate is called Aline and is a solid form of hyaluronic acid attached to a needle. It’s under development for use as a dermal filler in a patient’s lower face. Hyaluronic acid is a moisturizing agent found naturally in the skin and is a core ingredient in Allergan’s Juvéderm lower-face filler line.
Irvine-based heart valve maker Edwards Lifesciences Corp. said a U.S. District Court judge granted a preliminary injunction on rival Medtronic Inc.’s CoreValve in the U.S. Edwards sued Medtronic in 2008, and a jury ruled in 2010 that CoreValve infringed on Edwards’ Andersen transcatheter aortic valve replacement patent.
Hospitality
The long-planned Great Wolf Lodge Resorts hotel and water park in Garden Grove will break ground this spring, according to Mayor Bruce Broadwater. The park and 600-room hotel project will have about 18,000 square feet of retail that the city is contributing $47 million and 12 acres on Harbor Boulevard toward. The project has a tentative opening date of June 2015.
Dana Point city officials voted down a project to build a five-story hotel on Pacific Coast Highway. The city’s planning commission unanimously rejected the plans due to the size of the project and the traffic it would generate. The 250-room luxury hotel planned by Beverly Hills Hospitality Group, 60.5 feet in height, would’ve far exceeded Dana Point’s 35-foot height limit.
Manufacturing
Huntington Beach-based Cambro Manufacturing, maker of plastic products for the food services industry, announced plans to build a facility in North Carolina in an investment expected to top $30 million.
Irvine-based confectionary company Ezaki Glico USA Corp. named Shunsuke Nakai its new president. The company is a unit of Osaka, Japan-based Ezaki Glico Co., which operates globally through various business lines, including snacks, processed food, dairy products and baby formula.
