EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Compiled by Mike Mason
TOP STORIES
Orange County’s economy should recover slowly but steadily next year, Chapman University said, with a 1.6% rise in jobs; Chapman said job growth would be 0.5% in the first quarter, improving to 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Other projections: income up 3.4%, retail sales 2.8% higher and building-permit valuations up 1.9% Passengers at John Wayne Airport would increase more than 20% to 10.3 million a year in 2003 vs. the current cap of 8.4 million, under a proposal to be voted on this week by Newport Beach and the Board of Supervisors; the airport, which now handles about 7.8 million travelers a year, is being called on to take more traffic now that plans for an El Toro airport are off.
TECHNOLOGY
William Anthony Lloyd, former chief financial officer of Anaheim-based Targus Group International Inc., was sentenced to three years in prison after embezzling $18 million from the maker of computer cases, security and power devices; Lloyd, who faced up to nearly four years on 15 counts of wire fraud, was given consideration for helping locate the embezzled funds and returning $1 million so far Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc. released a cable-modem chip that it hopes will challenge rival Irvine-based Broadcom Corp.; Conexant’s chip is set to be tested in January, while a Broadcom chip based on the same standards already is being tested Irvine-based Rainbow Technologies Inc. said it cut 40 workers,8% of its staff,mainly in its security software division; Rainbow said it stood by its profit prediction for the fourth quarter Santa Ana’s Starbase Corp. and its management were sued by a shareholder who alleges the company is selling to Scotts Valley-based Borland Software Corp. at a lower price than other offers Cable TV’s Western Show in Anaheim drew about 10,000 people this year, down 41% from a year ago amid an industry slump.
HEALTHCARE
Santa Barbara-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., OC’s biggest hospital operator with 10 facilities, said it plans to freeze retail charges for six months, ask regulators to approve discounted charges to the uninsured and lean more on fees from private health plans for revenue; Tenet also said that roughly half of its 113 U.S. hospitals will be audited in wake of charges that the hospital chain has overbilled Medicare (see related story, page 1) Shares of Newport Beach-based Health Care Property Investors Inc. fell 9% to 40.15 after the company said it sent default notices to Centennial Healthcare, a long-term care operator that leases 17 centers from Health Care Property; Centennial and third-party lessees owe $4.3 million, including December rent; three brokerages downgraded Health Care Property following the news Fountain Valley-based Sutura Inc. said it received a buyout offer from an undisclosed banking group for $60 million Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc. will take a charge of up to $39 million to settle a patent suit with Lavista, Neb.-based Streck Laboratories Inc. over Beckman’s hematology instruments Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. reaffirmed its full-year income forecast of $140 million, 1.3% higher than a survey of analysts; PacifiCare said it used $48 million of a recent $125 million sale of convertible notes to pay down more costly bank debt; meanwhile, PacifiCare said it would offer three new preferred provider health plans for individuals as it seeks to build its share of the non-employer-based market (see related story, page 1).
REAL ESTATE
Vancouver, British Columbia-based Bosa Development Corp. said it will start work next year on Marquee at Park Place, a pair of 18-story condominium buildings at Jamboree Road and the San Diego (I-405) Freeway Irvine-based homebuilder Standard Pacific Corp. said new home orders for November rose 139% to 608; excluding three acquisitions in Florida, the company’s orders were up 63% Irvine-based Signal Landmark Holdings Inc. dropped a lawsuit against the Amigos de Bolsa Chica environmental group, which has opposed a plan by Signal unit Hearthside Homes to develop on the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Huntington Beach.
GOVERNMENT
The Orange County Planning Department is expected to cut up to 40 jobs,or 20%,of its staff because building permit fees have fallen precipitously, leaving the department’s inspection fund empty A judge ordered lawyers to work out a plan for Tustin to pay the Santa Ana Unified School District $60 million due the school district for part of the former Tustin Marine base; Tustin wants to sell some of the base to pay the district, but Santa Ana says it needs a letter of credit right away so it can go ahead with construction plans for new schools; the judge, who says he’s leaning toward granting the district’s request for a letter of credit, has given lawyers until Dec. 17 to come up with a plan East Santa Ana Heights, a 200-acre, 1,000-resident area between the San Joaquin Hills (73) toll road and Upper Newport Bay, will join the city of Newport Beach July 1 after decades of debate over annexation; west Santa Ana Heights still is considering a move to Costa Mesa or Newport Beach OC’s Registrar of Voters office said more than 8,000 uncounted absentee ballots for the November elections were found, but that they didn’t affect the outcome of any races Fullerton’s planning commission OK’d a plan to turn the 26-acre former ConAgra/Hunt-Wesson Foods campus into the world headquarters of the Korean-American Grace Ministries International church that will rival Garden Grove’s Crystal Cathedral in size.
WHAT ELSE IS NEWS
A mixed bag for apparel retailers: Shares of Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. rose 6.4% to 27.72 after the company said its November same-store sales were 11.7% higher than a year ago; the retailer said its fourth-quarter earnings would be 10% better than previously forecast Meanwhile, Foothill Ranch-based The Wet Seal Inc. saw its shares fall 3.6% to 11.36 after reporting a 9.7% same-store sales decline in the month; Wet Seal said that improving sales in the first two weeks of November didn’t continue for the last half of the month, despite “very strong” sales on the day after Thanksgiving Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc. also warned about the fourth quarter, saying sales of its sunglasses and other products would be 9% lower than expected Construmex, a unit of Mexican cement maker Cemex SA de CV, opened an office in Santa Ana, its third in the state; Construmex lets U.S. residents buy building materials for homes they are building in Mexico Three OC libraries were awarded $18 million from the California Public Library Construction and Renovation Board; the funds will be used to expand existing facilities in Orange and Anaheim and build a new one in Newport Beach.
