Compiled by Pat Maio
TOP STORIES
Foothill Ranch-based nursing home operator SHG Holding Solutions Inc. filed plans for an initial public offering, looking to raise $175 million (see story, page 1).
SHG is the parent of Skilled Healthcare Group, which runs more than 70 nursing and assisted-living homes in five states.
Toronto-based investor Onex Corp. acquired Skilled Healthcare for about $650 million in late 2005.
The offering would be the largest for OC this year. In March, Newport Beach-based Acquicor Technology Inc. raised $173 million.
Irvine-based Mexican fast-food chain El Pollo Loco Inc. pulled its $135 million initial public offering, citing poor market conditions for restaurants. El Pollo Loco filed plans to go public in May. Now “market conditions make it inadvisable to proceed with the offering at this time,” the company said. New York’s Trimaran Capital Partners LLC bought El Pollo Loco last year for an estimated $400 million.
A judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission said San Diego’s Qualcomm Inc. infringed on a Broadcom Corp. patent but not two others and didn’t bar imports of cell phones with Qualcomm chips. The two companies still have litigation pending.
Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc. sued hedge fund managers Michael Roth and Brian Stark after they took large stakes in the Anaheim company. The maker of flexible circuit boards, which goes by M-Flex, said the complaint charges “the hedge funds and their managers have failed to provide complete and materially accurate information regarding the nature of their holdings.” The funds also have invested in M-Flex’s sister company, MFS Technology Ltd. of Singapore. Both M-Flex and MFS are owned by Singapore’s WBL Corp. M-Flex earlier this year said it’s buying MFS for $500 million but now is trying to get out of the deal. The funds said they would vote their M-Flex shares in favor of the deal.
Irvine’s VitalStream Holdings Inc., a maker of software for online video and audio, is being bought for $217 million by Atlanta-based Internap Network Services Corp. Internap, which helps companies directly connect to the Internet, said the deal is expected to close in the first quarter.
Santa Ana-based Powerwave Techn-
ologies Inc. warned that it would fall short of previous sales guidance by a wide margin. The maker of wireless tower gear said it now expects sales of $155 million to $160 million compared to earlier expectations of $200 million to $210 million.
IBM Corp. completed its $1.6 billion purchase of Costa Mesa-based FileNet Corp.
Irvine drug hopeful Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said the Food and Drug Administration lifted a seven-month hold it placed on clinical trials for its Ampakine CX717 drug for possible memory enhancement.
Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc. named Charles Slacik senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective Oct. 23. Slacik comes to Beckman, a maker of medical diagnostic equipment and supplies, from Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Corona.
Irvine mortgage lender ECC Capital Corp. is selling its subprime loan business to Bear Stearns Cos. for $26 million in a move that signals a winding down of the company. ECC said it plans to “explore strategic alternatives with respect to maximizing the value of its remaining assets.”
St. John Knits Inc., the luxury women’s clothing designer in Irvine, is bringing back Bruce Fetter as president and chief operating officer on Nov. 1. Fetter spent eight years at the company, including a stint as co-chief executive, before resigning in 2005 after the arrival of short-lived chief Richard Cohen.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Mixed: The median price of an Orange County home fell for a third straight month in September to $626,000, while the number of houses sold showed the biggest year-over-year decline of any Southland county outside San Diego. The county’s median price was down 1.6% from $633,000 in August, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems, a unit of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates. The September median was up 2.6% from a year earlier, and the smallest yearly rise in nearly seven years. The number of homes sold in the county dropped 34.6% to 2,664 in September from a year earlier.
