Compiled by Julie Leupold
TECHNOLOGY
Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc., a maker of flexible circuit boards for cell phones and other devices, named a new chief executive. The company, known as M-Flex, named Reza Meshgin chief executive as part of a succession plan. Longtime boss Phil Harding, 75, is set to give up the post and continue as chairman.
Irvine-based Specific Media Inc., an online advertising company, bought London’s Adviva Media Ltd. for undisclosed terms. In November, Specific Media raised $100 million,the biggest funding of its kind in Orange County last year (see page 44).
HEALTHCARE
LifeMasters Supported SelfCare Inc., an Irvine disease management company, said it raised $15 million from existing investors. LifeMasters plans to use the money to expand its disease management and health improvement programs.
A Washington state jury awarded $40.1 million to a man whose heart was damaged by a malfunctioning monitor made by Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp. Paramijit Singh, a 54-year-old of Mount Vernon, Wash., received the award after five weeks of testimony and argument. The award included $8.35 million in punitive damages. Edwards, which accused Providence Everett Medical Center of using a damaged cable, also was ordered to pay the hospital $310,000 in damages. In other news, Michael Mussallem, Edwards chief executive, was named chairman of AdvaMed, a Washington, D.C.-based medical device trade group.
REAL ESTATE
Orange County’s median home price was unchanged in February from January, stopping the bleeding that has seen prices here fall $125,000 from the market’s June 2007 peak. But prices still are down sharply from a year earlier and sales continue to plummet. The median price of an OC home was $520,000 in February, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems. The median price here is down $100,000, or 16%, from a year earlier and is off 19% from OC’s record high of $645,000 in June. Sales in OC were off 40% from a year earlier, with 1,471 home sales in February. Sales were up 14% from January’s modest levels.
Westminster Mall officials said they plan to spend more than $10 million to renovate the shopping center, a move they hope will help lure upscale tenants. The mall, owned by Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group Inc., is in talks with a big retailer that may take at least 25,000 square feet. The center will remain open during the renovation, which is set to start in April and end in October.
RETAIL
Anaheim-based mall retailer Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. reported quarterly results that beat expectations after charges and gave a mixed outlook for the current quarter and year. For the three months ended Feb. 2, Pacific Sunwear earned $21.7 million, excluding its demo store chain that’s closing. Wall Street had expected it to earn $21 million. Revenue fell 8% from a year earlier to $420.1 million but beat estimates of $389 million. For the current quarter through May 3, the company foresees a loss of $4.2 million to $5.6 million, up from Wall Street’s expected $1.4 million. Pacific Sunwear is more upbeat for the 12 months through January. It said it sees a yearly profit from continuing operations of $51 million to $54 million. Analysts on average had been expecting a profit of $35 million.
GOVERNMENT
A four-year battle with eBay Inc. has brought a name change to the Web sites of Huntington Beach’s Perfume Bay Inc. The sites now are called Beauty Encounter, after the company last year lost an appeal in a trademark infringement case against the online auctioneer and retailer. Beauty Encounter, which sells perfume, makeup, and bath and body products online, opted to change its Web sites instead of continuing the court battle.
Orange County probably will lose some of the $80 million it invested in a now-defaulted investment, according to a financial expert. It’s “very unlikely” the county will be repaid in full when its investments in Britain’s Whistlejacket Capital Ltd. mature in January, said Joseph Mason, a finance professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
OTHER NEWS
Ford Motor Co.’s decision to move its Volvo Cars of North America LLC from Irvine to New Jersey takes away a major automaker as well as one of the county’s most prominent women executives. Along with the move, former Volvo North American chief executive Anne B & #233;lec is heading to Dearborn, Mich., to be Ford’s director of global marketing. The move puts Volvo’s U.S. operations closer to its Swedish headquarters. Volvo currently employs 110 people in Irvine.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Down: Orange County’s employment outlook, with a Manpower Inc. survey calling it “one of the worst in the nation” with 43% of companies planning to cut workers.
Improving: OC home foreclosures, which fell 26% in February from January, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
