Take it from George Argyros: “We’ll get through this.” The billionaire OC businessman shrugs off his stock losses, saying he’s a long-term investor and the market will recover. But he regrets the far-reaching impacts of the financial industry meltdown: “Wall Street gamed the business.” He also blames lax regulators, congressmen who advocated risky home lending and technology. “They couldn’t have sold tranches of loans like they did without computers.” One conclusion: “Wall Street doesn’t belong in real estate.” Does John McCain-backer Ar-gyros want to make a prediction on the presidential race? “No.” No comment on his reported interest in buying the OC Register, either …
Blue Christmas: Makar Properties is foregoing its annual over-the-top holiday party at the St. Regis Resort Monarch Beach. Makar CEO Paul Makarechian points to the “economic crisis” that is “deeply affecting many.” “We have chosen to shift our focus to help those who are in need this holiday season,” he says …
There’s no time like the present for the Audit Committee Roundtable of Orange County, a networking group designed to help corporate directors keep a close eye on their companies’ financial activities. It’s the brainchild of retired Price-waterhouseCoopers senior partner Dean Yoost, who says members will “share experiences in a very turbulent period of time.” The first quarterly meeting featured Walter Smiechewicz, former head of enterprise risk management at Countrywide Financial, the failed mortgage giant that is now part of Bank of America. Yoost says Smiechewicz “got into lessons learned.” Membership is by invitation and won’t grow much beyond the current 15 executives/directors, who include retired Powerwave Tech-nologies chief Bruce Edwards, former Conexant CFO Bala Iyer, corporate adviser Michal Conaway (Peregrine Group, Newport Beach), retired Ernst & Young OC managing partner Sally Anderson and business consultant Fernando Niebla (Inter-national Technology Partners, Orange) …
Chapman U’s entrepreneurship program has repeated as a top 10 finisher in the annual graduate and undergraduate rankings by The Princeton Review and Irvine-based Entrep-reneur magazine. USC also made both top 10s, while UCLA placed on the graduate list …
Cal State Fullerton Prez Milt Gordon is new chairman of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, which promotes Hispanic education at 464 colleges and universities …
The Legal Aid Society of Orange County celebrates its 50th anniversary Thurs-day at the Grove of Anaheim …
EE RR spent a few unseasonally cool days in Florida, leaving as Bill Clinton was arriving for a midnight rally with Obama. He saw some of California’s ATM-campaign dollars at work in the battleground state,frequent TV ads for McCain but many more for Obama. He observed tough local media coverage of disgraced incumbent Congressman Tim Mahoney, the Palm Beach County Democrat whose sex scandal hasn’t drawn anywhere near the national attention of that of the Republican he replaced, Mark Foley.
