TOP STORY
The county’s job market showed continued improvement last month as employers added 9,100 jobs in May, the strongest monthly gain this year. The county’s unemployment rate was 9.2% in May, down from a revised 9.5% in April and 8.6% a year earlier, according to the state Employment Development Department. The county continues to lose jobs on a yearly basis, but layoffs slowed to their lowest level since the peak of the recession in early 2009. Employment declined by 14,800 jobs, or 1.1%, in May from a year earlier.
TECHNOLOGY
Irvine’s Broadcom Corp. is paying $47.5 million for Innovision Research & Technology PLC, a British maker of chips that allow for near field communication, or the wireless exchange of data within a matter of inches. Innovision’s products are designed to let people pay for things using their cells phones or receive offers from electronic advertising. Broadcom expects the all-cash deal to close in the third quarter.
Santa Ana-based technology products distributor Ingram Micro Inc. acquired a Spanish company for undisclosed terms. Ingram bought Albora Soluciones SL, a provider of business software based in Barcelona. In other Ingram news, President and operations chief Alain Monie is set to leave the company in August for the top post at an undisclosed Asian industrial company. Monie’s duties will be absorbed by others.
One Mind Connect Inc., an Irvine-based maker of software that sells its products under the Expensable name, was bought by Houston-based Administaff Inc. for undisclosed terms. Expensable’s software automates expense reimbursement for companies and helps them track other expenses. Expensable, which has 18 workers here, is set to operate as a subsidiary and is looking to expand.
HEALTHCARE
MP Biomedicals LLC, Milan Panic’s Santa Ana-based maker of medical testing and research products, is buying a New Zealand company. MP Biomedicals said it signed a deal to buy ICPbio International Ltd., which makes products, such as serums, that are used by biotech and biopharmaceutical companies. Terms weren’t disclosed. Panic is the founder and former chief executive of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., now Aliso Viejo-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals Inter-national.
REAL ESTATE
Irvine-based homebuilder California Coastal Communities Inc. lined up $182 million in financing from a New York hedge fund that could help the company emerge from bankruptcy protection. The financing, spread among three loans, replaces the builder’s existing secured debt. Court records show the investor to be Luxor Capital Group LP, which also is an investor in Freedom Communications Inc., owner of the Orange County Register.
Newport Beach’s Irvine Company is closer to donating 20,000 acres of parkland to the OC Parks Commission for preservation. The Board of Supervisors is set to consider the offer June 29, after the commission recommended approving the donation, saying it has enough money to keep up the land.
A unit of Texas-based Hines Interest LP paid $20 million for an older Irvine office, a few weeks after selling its most prominent tower here for $103 million. Hines purchased the two-story, 98,925-square-foot office building at 17600 Gillette Ave., near John Wayne Airport, from AJ Irvine Owner Corp. The building is fully leased through early 2016 to advertising agency Draft FCB.
APPAREL
Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver Inc. struck a deal to exchange debt for shares with a financier that provided the clothing maker with a lifesaving investment and loan deal last year. Quiksilver plans to exchange $75 million worth of secured term loan debt for 16.7 million shares with New York-based Rhone Group LLC. The company is exchanging the shares at a rate of $4.50 each, valuing the deal at $21.2 million. The company also has the option to offer more shares to Rhone in exchange for forgiving $65 million in additional debt on its secured term loans, which have a balance of about $160 million. If the debt-for-stock swaps go through, Rhone would own 30% of Quiksilver.
FINANCE
Anaheim Hills-based Fremont General Corp., one of the casualties of the subprime mortgage meltdown, emerged from bankruptcy with a new name, key owner and strategy. The company emerged under a reorganization plan drafted by Los Angeles-based distressed buyout firm Signature Group Holdings LLP. Fremont now goes by Signature Group Holdings Inc. The company also changed its stock ticker to “SGGH” on the low-profile Pink Sheets exchange.
OTHER NEWS
Santa Ana-based vocational school operator Corinthian Colleges Inc. and others face new rules next year on how they recruit and counsel students, but the initial proposals aren’t as harsh as some industry watchers feared. The Department of Education plans to mandate that Corinthian and others provide students with graduation and job- placement rates and limit how the compan-ies pay recruiters to bring in students. The proposals are part of an effort to crack down on students who take on too much federal aid and run the risk of defaulting on loans.
