Other news items of interest from the Orange County Business Journal
Australia-based Rip Curl Group Pty. Ltd. hired Merrill Lynch in connection with the possible sale of the surfwear company. Rip Curl has U.S. headquarters in Costa Mesa, with about 175 OC employees. Rip Curl said it has received “unsolicited approaches from several international organizations which have indicated a desire to invest in our company.”
Lorna Jane Pty. Ltd., an Australian-based retailer of women’s activewear, will open its first Orange County stores this month as part of a larger push in the U.S. Store openings are planned at Bella Terra in Huntington Beach and in Irvine Spectrum Center.
Costa Mesa-based Paul Frank Industries LLC is moving its headquarters to the Los Angeles offices of its parent, an affiliate of Saban Capital Group Inc. The Costa Mesa office handled design work for the company and totaled six people, according to a recent Business Journal list.
Orange County’s unemployment rate fell in August, despite the loss of 5,200 jobs, according to state Employment Development Dept. data. The jobless rate dipped to 7.7% last month compared with 7.9% in July and 9% a year earlier. OC now has 1,385,100 non-farm jobs, according to the report.
Irvine-based Aviir Inc. got a $5 million loan and $3 million line of credit from Silicon Valley Bank. Aviir said it will use the capital to speed up commercialization of its products and build infrastructure for its cardiac risk assessment portfolio of lab tests. Aviir is developing and commercializing diagnostic tests to identify people with a high risk of heart attack.
Michael Lopez of Anaheim faces charges of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence and leaving the scene of an accident following a fatal accident involving the truck he was driving and the bicycle of Dr. Catherine “Kit” Campion Ritz, who was president of the Greater Newport Physicians doctors group. Campion Ritz died at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo a few hours after the accident, which occurred Sept. 15 on Newport Coast Drive in Newport Beach.
Anaheim hotels record the state’s highest room-rate increases between June and August, climbing 43% to an average $155.25, according to website HotelsCombined. San Francisco had the second-highest jump in room rates, at 24%.
Irvine-based online media company Local.com Corp. changed its name to Local Corp. The company, which operates local business website local.com, among others, said the name change signals its intent to grow into a more “diversified local media business.”
A Kickstarter campaign on behalf of Obsidian Entertainment’s Project Eternity has raised more than $1.7 million. The Irvine-based videogame developer is using the crowd-funding site to finance the game’s development, in hopes of bypassing the need for game-publisher financing.
An 8,300-square-foot home in Newport Harbor—which actor Nicolas Cage sold in 2007 for $35 million—was sold Sept. 13 by Jerry Herbst, owner of a chain of casinos and gas stations, for just under $25 million. The buyer wasn’t disclosed.
Lake Forest-basest fast-food chain Del Taco LLC will open two company-owned restaurants in the Austin, Texas, area in the next few months, continuing an expansion in the state.
Newport Beach-based Stacked Restaurants LLC, which allows diners to make custom orders through iPads, plans to open a new location in Thousand Oaks in the next few months. The restaurant at The Oaks Mall will be company owned. Stacked also has locations in Torrance, Cerritos and San Diego.
Owners of the Triangle shopping center hired Madison Marquette Retail Services of Washington D.C. to handle its leasing and management. The Triangle, formerly known as Triangle Square, is owned by Newport Beach-based real estate investor Greenlaw Partners, Westbrook Partners LLC of New York, and Walton Street Capital LLC in Chicago.
Chapman University took over operation of the former Libreria Martinez Books and Art Gallery in Santa Ana, with plans to reopen the store Oct. 27 as Libreria Martinez de Chapman University. The Orange-based school will run the store on a nonprofit basis.
ECONOMIC INDICATOR
UP: The median sale price for single-family homes in Orange County in August, which rose 3% from July and 12% from a year earlier, to $567,710, according to the California Association of Realtors. Home sales rose 2% from July and 23% from a year earlier last month. The inventory of homes for sale fell more than 30% from a year earlier to the lowest level in seven years.
