Other items of interest Orange County Business Journal
APPAREL
Robert E. Gray, co-founder of Irvine-based St. John Knits International Inc., died Feb. 28 at age 86. Gray started St. John Knits with wife Marie in 1962. The two grew the company into a major fashion brand with women’s knitwear sold by Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. The company also operates 27 St. John Knits stores. The Grays sold St. John Knits to New York-based private equity firm Vestar Capital Partners in 1999. Their daughter, Kelly, and son, Mike, both served separate stints as president of St. John Knits.
AUTOMOTIVE
Orange County-based automakers continued to post strong sales in February, when the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales for the U.S. market rose to 15.1 million vehicles, according to Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based Autodata Corp.’s automotive researcher Motor Intelligence. It was the first time in four years the industry measure passed the 15 million mark. Most local manufacturers contributed to the sales momentum, with Brea-based American Suzuki Motor Corp. marking the biggest monthly leap with 2,425 vehicles sold in February, a 48% year-to-year gain.
ENTERTAINMENT
Online-game maker Blizzard Entertainment Inc. in Irvine announced plans to lay off 600 employees, or 8% of its worldwide work force. There was no immediate indication of how many cuts would come in Orange County, where it employs 1,700. The company—a unit of Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc. and part of Paris-based Vivendi SA—said 90% of the job cuts will be in departments unrelated to game development.
FINANCE
Little Falls, Minn.-based Home Savings of America, the fifth-largest thrift operating in Orange County, based on local deposits, has been closed by federal regulators. Home Savings had branches in Seal Beach and Laguna Woods, with local deposits of about $272 million as of June 2011, according to a recent Business Journal list. It had about $437 million in assets at the same time and a core capital ratio of about 3.7%. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Home Savings after no other bank or thrift offered to buy it.
HEALTHCARE
Blue Shield of California is suing Irvine-based Monarch HealthCare, A Medical Group Inc. San Francisco-based Blue Shield alleges Monarch refused to treat its members and “committed multiple breaches” of a three-year provider pact that took effect in January 2010. The alleged breaches include Monarch’s recent sale to Optum, a unit of Minnesota-based United HealthGroup Inc. Blue Shield said the Optum-Monarch deal was made without its consent and that afterwards Monarch tried to steer patients to other health plans and refused to treat some Blue Shield members. Blue Shield is seeking damages of $10.5 million in the complaint. A Monarch statement called the allegations “mischaracterizations.” (see related story, page 3.)
MANUFACTURING
Pro-Dex Inc., an Irvine-based manufacturer of medical devices and systems, sold its aerospace-oriented business, Pro-Dex Astromex Inc. in Carson City, Nev., to an unnamed buyer for $830,000. The business’ headquarters building and its cash reserves were excluded from the sale.
TECHNOLOGY
Irvine-based cyber-security company CrowdStrike secured $26 million in start-up financing from private equity firm Warburg Pincus. CrowdStrike Chief Executive George Kurtz is the former chief technol- ogy officer of security-software company McAfee Inc., a unit of Intel Corp. in Santa Clara.
OTHER NEWS
The National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings struck a tentative deal to keep the franchise from seeking a new hometown. The deal appears to all but end efforts by Henry Samueli, cofounder of Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom Corp., to lure the team to Anaheim. Samueli, who owns the Anaheim Ducks hockey team and the company that runs the Anaheim-owned Honda Center, had wanted to help relocate the team to Orange County.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
UP: The picture on bankruptcy filings in Orange County, where 1,348 cases were filed in January, a decline of nearly 10% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana.
DOWN: Equity levels for homeowners in Orange County in 2011, according to Santa Ana-based real estate data tracker CoreLogic Inc. Some 18.3% of mortgage holders in OC owed more than their homes were worth at the end of last year, compared with 17.6% a year earlier. 22.8% of homeowners nationwide were underwater on their mortgages, compared with 22.1% a year earlier.
