Some early figuring on our annual OC’s Wealthiest list—which will be the subject of a special issue on Aug. 6—points to the likelihood that Quest Software Chairman Vinny Smith will become the 13th member of the billionaires’ club here. Dell’s $2.36 billion deal to buy the Aliso Viejo-based company comes to $28 a share for Quest, a hike of about 75% since last summer, when we figured Smith’s holdings as part of an estimate that put his wealth at $650 million. The Dell deal would add about $350 million to the value of Smith’s 34% stake, putting him right on the billion-dollar mark …
Quest led a wave of action among OC companies that brought some bang in advance of last week’s Fourth of July holiday. Quest gave word of its deal with Dell about the same time Ingram Micro announced an $840 million buy of Israel-based BrightPoint, and Gaikai said it will be bought by Sony for $380 million—all on the morning of July 2 (see related coverage, pages 1 and 50) …
From rolling ranchland to top of the hill—that’s how Chancellor Michael Drake sees UCI’s No. 4 ranking among “new” schools (colleges and universities less than 50 years old) from Times Higher Education in London. UCI was the top-ranked U.S. entry, and Drake noted that the first three spots were polytechnic schools. That puts UCI—with its business, arts and humanities schools to go with engineering and the like—tops among “comprehensive universities.” Drake told the Insider that the credit belongs to the “people who founded us with a unique vision that we could go from rolling ranchlands to a world-class university, and to all the people who built us over the decades of sustained effort” …
Merrill Lynch’s William Schellenberg is giving advice on more than wealth management these days. The senior financial adviser at the Merrill Lynch office in Laguna Hills has been serving as caddy for his godson, 17-year-old Beau Hossler, the Rancho Santa Margarita amateur who grabbed headlines after he spent a brief spell on the leader board of the U.S. Open last month before finishing 29th. Tiger Woods got Hossler a sponsor’s exemption to play the AT&T Congressional a week later …
Nobody goes there anymore—it’s too crowded: The owners of the shuttered Itriya Cafe Spaghetti & Ssam at the Diamond Jamboree shopping center in Irvine have offered this explanation for the short-lived restaurant’s failure: the bustling center draws more customers than its parking lot can handle, according to court documents. Itriya started offering Italian/Korean fusion cuisine last September at Diamond Jamboree. It shut down earlier this year, deals to sell the place out of bankruptcy fell through, and court documents suggest liquidation is likely. Reporter Mark Mueller’s tip: skip the surface parking at Diamond Jamboree in favor of the structure behind the center—and try the Kula Revolving Sushi Bar (see story, page 4) …
New duties: Former Tustin mayor and current city councilmember Jerry Amante has joined Jeff Flint’s Sacramento-based lobbyist and PR firm FSB Core Strategies as SVP/general counsel and deputy managing director of its OC office in Irvine.
