Other items of interest Orange County Business Journal
Friends Church paid $100,000 toward more than $400,000 demanded by representatives of Yorba Linda City Council for back rent on a 32-acre site the church is turning into a 1,200-student high school.
Orange-based hospital operator St. Joseph Health System shortened its name to St. Joseph Health. The company said it was dropping “system” from its name to reflect operations besides its hospitals, such as medical groups and outpatient services.
Irvine-based healthcare information-systems provider Quality Systems Inc. bought the Poseidon Group, an Atlanta-based provider of medical data systems, on undisclosed terms. The acquisition was made to support Quality Systems’ NextGen Inpatient Solutions product.
Irvine-based Allergan Inc., which makes Botox and the Lap-Band, signed a lease on a 93,000-square-foot research and development facility in Bridgewater, N.J. Allergan announced plans for the center several months ago. The facility is expected to create several hundred new jobs over the next three to five years, and Allergan will invest $12 million in its New Jersey operations.
Costa Mesa-based technical ceramic products company Ceradyne Inc. received initial production orders valued at $3.9 million for an enhanced combat helmet. The helmets are expected to be shipped to the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army by June.
Yahoo Inc.’s media and advertising boss Ross Levinsohn, a board member of Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc., was named interim chief executive of the Sunnyvale-based Internet company. Levinsohn succeeds Scott Thompson, who resigned after a flap over resume inaccuracies (see related story, page 73).
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Michael Stewart of San Clemente and John Packs and Randall Smith of Long Beach, alleging their real estate venture Apartments America LLC defrauded investors by failing to disclose their previous Irvine-based firm had filed for bankruptcy. Pacific Property Assets filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and its co-owners formed the new venture in September of the same year, according to an SEC suit filed in U.S. District Court in Santa
Ana.
Santa Ana-based Iteris Inc., which makes traffic-management sensors, was awarded a contract from the city of Oxnard to integrate a smart transportation system. The deal is valued at up to $1.7 million, with Iteris responsible for 140 intersections, designing a traffic-management center and carrying out tests.
Construction began on the $20 million Grand Plaza project at Anaheim Convention center. The seven-month project will add 100,000 square feet of convention space, walkways, landscaping and a lighted monument.
Destination Irvine said visitors spent $498.9 million in the city last year, 6% more than in 2010. Spending on food and beverages topped expenditures at $138.4 million, followed by $115 million for accommodations.
Court filings connected to lawsuits involving operations of Trinity Broadcasting Network in Costa Mesa allege misuse of tens of millions of dollars from the nonprofit ministry’s accounts on expenditures such as pricey hotel stays and support for the Gener8xion film company. Counter-claims suggest those claims were concocted to deflect attention from misdeeds by others. The charges against Trinity come primarily from the Brittany Koper, the granddaughter of co-founders Jan and Paul Crouch, and her husband Michael Koper.
ECONOMIC INDICATOR
UP: Employment in Orange County in April, when the jobless rate fell from 7.4% from 8.2% in March and 8.5% a year earlier. The jobless rate was 10.5% in California and 7.7% nationwide in April. OC added 3,300 jobs for a total nonfarm employment of almost 1.39 million. Some of the April decline stemmed from revised data for the earlier periods.
UP: The outlook on distressed residential property in Orange County in April, when the rate of foreclosures declined by about 9% compared with the prior month and 22% a year earlier, according to Irvine-based RealtyTrac. Foreclosures statewide dipped 14% from March and 30% from a year earlier.
