First American Plans Additions; VIP-Jet Equipper at JWA
OC Insider by Rick Reiff
First American Financial Corp. plans to add two five-story buildings to its campus at MacArthur and the 55 freeway, one for its trust business and the other for its data operations, the Insider hears. Workers would be consolidated from downtown Santa Ana, Newport Beach and Anaheim. Target for groundbreaking is next year
IFR Avionics, a contractor to the jet set, is coming to John Wayne. The Van Nuys Airport-based installer and servicer of flight controls, sound systems and other electronics in corporate and private aircraft expects to be operating by Aug. 1 in a hangar subleased from Martin Aviation. It’s IFR’s second satellite, following the recent opening of a facility in Tyler, Texas. Frank Singer, who co-owns IFR with Jim Lauer fellow OC investor Robert Alexander, said the company wants to be closer to the 1,100 private jets, planes and helicopters here; he figures JWA can eventually match Van Nuys’ $8 million in annual revenue. IFR’s clients include the Saudi royal family, Rupert Murdoch, Larry Flint, John Travolta and George Argyros, as well as Disney, Raytheon, the Goodyear blimp and the OC sheriff’s department. Incidentally, Alexander and wife Darlene just celebrated their 50th anniversary
The Insider continues to hear that the big money behind the purchase of Laguna Colony resort is 36-year-old eBay founder Pierre Omidyar ($4.6 billion net worth per Forbes’ estimate, six notches higher than Donald Bren). New operator Alan Fuerstman chats with Sandi Cain on page 6, but remains mum about the ownership
Does Wally Kreutzen, CEO of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, think about the fact that behemoth Franklin Templeton Investment Funds, a ringleader in the recent ouster of Milan Panic as CEO of ICN Pharmaceuticals, is also one of the biggest holders of bonds in TCA’s financially troubled 73 toll road? “A little bit”
Attendance at the Entrepreneur of the Year banquet at the St. Regis was 535, down by about 100 from last year
Baseball fever: The OC Forum’s July 25 event is lunch with Rex Hudler at Edison Field, followed by the 1:05 Angels-A’s game. On Aug. 20 the group is hosting the Dodgers’ (and Fullerton’s) Tommy Lasorda, without a ballgame. Call (949) 588-9884
Happy 40th to the inimitable Patrick and Fifi Chao
The Irvine office’s Rob Bekken has been tapped to head Atlanta-based law firm Fisher & Phillips’ new national development effort, while Jim McDonald has been named managing partner in Irvine
Beverly Hills businessman Harry Shuster, 67, former owner of Lion Country Safari in Irvine, has been sentenced in New York federal court to six years in prison and ordered to make $6 million in restitution for his role in the Stratton Oakmont stock scheme … What is David Perry, managing partner in Newport Beach for law firm Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly and a perennial picture-poser, going to be in this year’s Pageant of the Masters July 7 to Aug. 31? A firefighter sculpture.
