Other items of interest Orange County Business Journal
FINANCE
Newport Beach-based distressed-debt specialist Sabal Financial Group LP acquired a $204 million loan portfolio from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The bundle is part of a larger portfolio sale of more than 50 recently failed banks throughout the U.S., and consists of performing and nonperforming commercial and residential loans secured by properties across the U.S.
Irvine-based athlete-endorsement consultants Brand Affinity Technologies raised $4.6 million toward a $7 million target in an ongoing funding round, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that didn’t disclose sources. Previous investors in the 5-year-old company include Newport Coast Investments, RimLight Capital, Fulcrum Venture Capital and former Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s family-controlled CGI Opportunity Fund II.
LAW
Hesperia-based Valleywide Newspapers owner Raymond Pryke donated $1.5 million to the University of California, Irvine’s law school to create a faculty position dedicated to First Amendment law. Six law schools nationwide have similar endowed chairs, none in the UC system.
MANUFACTURING
Brett Wood will add the chief executive’s post at Toyota Material Handling North America in Columbus, Ind., to his title of chairman of Irvine-based Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. Inc. Wood also serves as executive vice president of Toyota Material Handling North America. He will take the top post after Chief Executive James Malvaso retires in April. Wood plans to split time between Irvine and Indiana.
Fourth-quarter data show a modest uptick in OC manufacturing production in the fourth quarter compared with the same quarter a year earlier, according to a report from Chapman University’s A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research in Orange. The report, which analyzed seasonally adjusted data collected in a survey of purchasing managers statewide, said high-tech manufacturing here is likely to notch slightly slower growth.
Amonix Inc., a Seal Beach-based maker of solar-power systems, tapped Jan van Dokkum of lead investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Silicon Valley as interim chief executive. The move follows the death of former Chief Executive Brian Robertson in a plane crash last month.
MEDIA
Coast Mesa-based direct-marketing agency Rauxa Direct LLC acquired ThoughtMatrix Inc., a San Francisco-based digital design and development firm, on unspecified terms. Rauxa, founded in 2003, has 44 workers and clients including Autodesk Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.
REAL ESTATE
One Broadway Plaza developer Caribou Industries Inc. must update building plans on the proposed 37-story project in Santa Ana after failing to secure construction permits by Dec. 31. The city said the Santa Ana-based development company, operated by developer Mike Harrah, was unable to do so because of financing delays.
The California Coastal Commission fined Goodell Family Trust $430,000 for disturbing artifacts at a 9,000-year-old Native American village site in a 6-acre site near the Bolsa Chica wetlands slated for development into single-family homes. The tract is adjacent to the Brightwater housing development.
RETAIL
The new, 20,000-square-foot Ranch Restaurant & Saloon in Anaheim features country-and-western music and dancing, while an adjacent dining room offers a gourmet comfort-food menu from Michael Jordan and Michael Rossi, formerly of Napa Rose in Downtown Disney. The restaurant-bar is owned by Extron Electronics Chief Executive Andrew Edwards, whose company’s headquarters anchors the site at 1025 E. Ball Road.
TECHNOLOGY
Newport Beach-based Acacia Research Corp., a publicly traded licensor of intellectual property patents, acquired Adaptix Inc., a Dallas-based 4G wireless developer, for $160 million. Officials said the acquisition broadens Acacia’s business model, which has been limited to partnerships with IP developers rather than business acquisitions.
OTHER NEWS
Sports agent Leigh Steinberg, of Newport Beach-based Steinberg Sports & Entertainment, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy … Irvine high schooler Allison Plette received a U.S. patent for Safe Filter, a pool drain safety device she developed while in the fifth grade. Plette’s invention won the 2006 Astounding Inventions Competition sponsored by the Irvine office of Miami-based law firm Greenberg Traurig at Irvine Valley College. She subsequently filed and received a U.S. patent.
ECONOMIC INDICATOR
UP: Wages in Orange County, where the average weekly pay rose 3.2%, to $999, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Labor. OC’s average wage ranked seventh statewide and topped the national average of $891.
