By Alisha Gomez
TOP STORIES
Advanced Medical Optics Inc. offered $4.1 billion in cash and stock for rival eye care products company Bausch & Lomb Inc. Santa Ana-based Advanced Medical’s offer competes with an existing $3.67 billion bid for Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch from Warburg Pincus LLC, a private equity firm. In late May, Advanced Medical had expressed interest in Bausch but remained mum about its interest during a series of recent conference calls dealing with its voluntary recall of its Complete MoisturePlus contact lens solution. Bausch had 50 days from May 16 to solicit alternate bids as part of its deal to go private. Meanwhile, Advanced Medical saw an activist hedge fund up its stake in the company to 12.2% from 9.9%. ValueAct Capital Partners LP of San Francisco bought an additional 2 million shares of Advanced Medical since June 2. The hedge fund now has some 7.3 million shares of the contact lens care and eye surgery products maker, making it the third-largest shareholder after FMR Corp.’s Fidelity and MFS Investments.
Ingram Micro Inc., the Santa Ana-based distributor of technology products, lowered its second-quarter outlook and warned of a $15 million charge related to a Securities and Exchange Commission probe. Ingram said it expects profits of $50 million to $56 million for the quarter. Earlier, the company had been looking for profits of $59 million to $65 million. Analysts on average had expected profits of about $61 million. Ingram kept its sales outlook at $8 billion to $8.25 billion. The charge relates to an ongoing SEC probe in which regulators are looking into transactions from 1998 to 2000 with McAfee Inc. The SEC said Ingram Micro failed to maintain adequate records for some of transactions.
Irvine’s Netlist Inc., a maker of computer memory products, said it expects to swing to a loss in the second quarter on weak demand from customers and falling memory chip prices. Netlist expects sales of $12.5 million to $13 million. Analysts were looking for about $35 million in sales. Including a $300,000 charge related to stock compensation, the company is expecting to post a loss of $6.9 million to $7.2 million. That includes a one-time charge of $5 million related to falling prices for memory chips.
Aliso Viejo drug maker Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc. said last week it is selling its FazaClo schizophrenia drug for $42 million to Azur Pharma Ltd. of Ireland. Avanir is selling FazaClo to shift focus to Zenvia, its drug candidate to treat involuntary emotional expression disorder. It will use $11 million of the sale’s proceeds to pay down debt. Azur also agreed to pay Avanir up to another $10 million if FazaClo meets sales goals.
Irvine-based New Century Financial Corp., the collapsed subprime lender that is liquidating in bankruptcy, said the SEC has elevated its look into the company to a formal investigation. A formal probe gives the SEC subpoena power. New Century has shut down its lending business, is selling other assets and has replaced most of its top executives, including former chief executive Brad Morrice. Meanwhile, the company said that it closed the sale of its mortgage servicing unit, which handles collections, to Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund Carrington Capital Management LLC. It sold the business for $177.4 million, below the $184 million it originally expected.
Irvine-based Option One Mortgage Corp. lost a $1.5 billion credit line from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in a move that raises questions about the subprime mortgage lender’s pending sale. Parent company H & R; Block Inc. said the credit line loss brings Option One’s borrowing capacity to about $8 billion, the minimum needed for a sale of the unit to go through. H & R; Block plans to sell Option One to New York-based private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, which stipulated a minimum of $8 billion of credit to close the deal, expected in October. Separately, Bank of America Corp. agreed to boost its Option One credit line to $2.25 billion from $2 billion until a sale is done.
Craig DeRoy, president of Santa Ana-based title insurer and data services provider First American Corp., plans to retire at the end of the year. DeRoy, 54, joined First American in 1993. He has served as president of the country’s second-largest title company since 2004, when Chief Executive Parker Kennedy turned over the position. His retirement removes a potential successor for Kennedy, 59. First American said it has no current plan to appoint a president to replace DeRoy.
San Clemente-based Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. sold six hotels for $150.5 million, including two in the Sacramento region. Sunstone, a real estate investment trust, sold the hotels to affiliates of DLJ Real Estate Partners. The company now counts 47 hotels with more than 16,400 rooms.
West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster is buying Irvine’s Paciolan, one of its few competitors in the ticket business. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Privately held Paciolan provides software for sports teams, museums and others to issue their own tickets. It also provides fund-raising and marketing services for events.
