EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Compiled by Mike Mason
TOP STORIES
Major League Baseball owners are considering Walt Disney Co.’s proposed sale of the Anaheim Angels to Phoenix-based businessman Arturo Moreno for $180 million. Moreno holds a minority stake in basketball’s Phoenix Suns and last year sold his stake in baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. He made his fortune,estimated at $940 million,in the billboard advertising business. He and a partner sold Outdoor Systems to N.Y.-based Viacom Inc. four years ago for a reported $8.7 billion in stock. Twenty of baseball’s 30 owners must OK the sale, which could come up for a vote at the owners’ mid-May meeting … Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp. lost out on its bid for a $680 million contract to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, including roads, schools, airports and power grids. San Francisco-based Bechtel Group Inc. won the contract, awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Meanwhile, Fluor said it expects to bid next month on an oil production and distribution contract for work in Iraq.
TECHNOLOGY
Shares of Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. surged 18% to 16.60 after the company said its first-quarter operating loss narrowed 62% to $60.2 million, vs. a year earlier, on a 37% gain in sales to $327.5 million … Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc. said its operating loss in the quarter ended March 31 narrowed to $57.3 million, vs. $174.6 million a year earlier, on a 6.5% rise in sales to $158.4 million … Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp. signed a pact to work with Intel Corp. on a set of storage networking chips and devices, set to be unveiled in 2004. The products, which link simple devices such as disk drives and home computers, would mark a new market for Emulex. The company mainly targets the high-end of the storage market for its devices that tie corporate servers to data storage machines … Anaheim-based Odetics Inc. said it plans to sell its Zyfer Inc. unit to an undisclosed buyer … Santa Ana-based Troy Group Inc. said it swung to a first-quarter operating profit of $468,000, vs. a loss of $298,000 a year earlier, on a 6.2% increase in sales to $14.4 million. Troy is in the process of being bought by Dirk Inc., a company controlled by Patrick Dirk, Troy’s founder, chief executive and chairman, and his family.
HEALTHCARE
Shares of Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. rose 27% to 29.11 after the company said its first-quarter net income would be at least twice as high as previous forecasts. The company, which plans to report its full results April 30, cited a more profitable Medicare business for the favorable earnings surprise.
REAL ESTATE
The U.S.’s top two title insurers, Irvine-based Fidelity National Financial Inc. and Santa Ana-based First American Corp., were dealt a potential setback when California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi rejected an administrative law judge’s ruling that a cheaper alternative to title insurance should be outlawed. Garamendi did not approve the alternative,lien protection, which costs about half the typical title insurance premium,but said his office would study additional evidence and testimony before making a decision … The Costa Mesa City Council OK’d Irvine-based Rutter Development Corp.’s 161 luxury condos for 1901 Newport Blvd. at 19th Street.
FINANCE
Irvine-based subprime mortgage lender New Century Financial Corp. said its first-quarter earnings before taxes jumped 32% to $78.1 million, vs. a year ago, on a 38% gain in revenue to $181 million. New Century raised its full year earnings guidance by 2% as loan production rose 77% to $4.7 billion in the quarter … Newport Beach-based Downey Financial Corp. said its first-quarter net income fell 19% to $30.2 million, vs. a year earlier. Downey, which was hurt by a decline in its mortgage servicing business because of heavy refinancing activity, saw its assets rise 4.8% to $11.4 billion in the period … Newport Beach-based Harbor National Bank said its net income in the first quarter fell 1.5% to $200,000 vs. a year earlier. Harbor National said its assets jumped 48% to $137.4 million in the period, with deposits growing 40% to $121.8 million.
GOVERNMENT
The Orange County Transportation Authority pegged the cost to fix a faulty carpool bridge on the Costa Mesa-San Diego freeway interchange at $1.5 million to $2.5 million. When damage to the connector was discovered in August, engineers initially feared the $12-million link would have to be replaced, before then estimating the fix to be about $5 million.
WHAT ELSE IS NEWS
Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc. said its first-quarter operating profit fell 42% to $5.3 million, vs. a year earlier, on a 1% gain in sales to $111.2 million. Oakley said sales were hurt by the weak retail environment made worse by war with Iraq … Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corp. cut its forecast for North American auto sales by 6.3% to 375,000. Pierre Gagnon, head of Mitsubishi’s Cypress-based North American unit, cited the war in Iraq and severe winter weather for the cut … A state bar judge heard arguments last week in the case against lawyers at Beverly Hills-based Trevor Law Group LLP, accused of filing extortion lawsuits against a number of OC and other Southland small businesses. A decison on disbarment is expected in the next couple of weeks.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Mixed: Orange County’s jobs picture in March, with the number of nonfarm jobs unchanged at 1,400,200, vs. a year earlier, but the unemployment rate falling 0.2% to 3.8%.
