Stories in this week’s Orange County Business Journal
TOP STORIES
Job gains in government, professional services, education and healthcare sent the county unemployment rate in February below 9% for the second time in three months. The county gained 8,800 jobs in February from January, pushing unemployment to 8.9%, down from 9.2% in January and 9.7% a year earlier, according to the state Employment Development Department. Employers here in February added 16,300 jobs from a year earlier, a 1.2% gain to 1.35 million nonfarm workers. That marked the seventh month of consecutive yearly gains.
Santa Ana-based real estate brokerage and investor Grubb & Ellis Co. hired San Francisco-based investment bank JMP Securities to explore options for the company, including a possible sale. The move comes after Grubb & Ellis last month started Daymark Realty Advisors in Santa Ana as a separate company to manage assets from a 2007 combination with Santa Ana-based NNN Realty Advisors Inc., including 8,700 apartments and 33 million square feet of commercial space bought through tenant-in-common funds.
Newport Beach-based mutual fund manager Pacific Investment Management Co. has raised more than $1.5 billion to buy troubled commercial and home mortgages and possibly invest directly in small lenders and community banks, according to Bloomberg. Dan Ivascyn, a portfolio manager in Pimco’s mortgage and asset-backed securities group, and Scott Simon, head of the group, are set to lead the fund. It is expected to top out at $2 billion to $3 billion raised later this year. The move appears to be part of an ongoing diversification at Pimco, best known for investing in bonds.
HEALTHCARE
Standard & Poor’s is adding Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp. to its S&P 500 index on March 31. Edwards is replacing Qwest Communications International Inc., a Denver-based telecommunications company that is being bought by CenturyLink Inc. of Monroe, La. Edwards, which had a recent market value of $9.8 billion, has been one of the county’s fastest-rising stocks, largely on anticipation for its Sapien less-invasive replacement heart valve.
Lake Forest-based InSight Health Services Holdings Corp. emerged from bankruptcy protection as a private company with new ownership. The medical imaging company eliminated nearly $300 million of debt in its second bankruptcy filing since 2007. InSight has $200 million in annual revenue. Black Dia-mond Capital Management LLC, a Lake Forest, Ill.-based investor with more than $5 billion in assets, is InSight’s new majority owner.
REAL ESTATE
Forty-eight percent of home sales in Orange County in February were through foreclosures or short sales, up from 43% a month ago and 42% a year earlier, according to the California Realtors Association.
RESTAURANTS
Bruno Serato, owner of the Anaheim White House restaurant, was named a CNN Hero in a segment that aired on the cable news network last week. Serato was honored as part of the Motel Kids program, in which each year he feeds 40,000 underprivileged kids who live in motels near Disneyland.
RETAIL
Foothill Ranch-based mall retailer Wet Seal Inc. appointed a former discount retail executive as president and chief operating officer of the 533-store chain. Ken Seipel is set to start this week in the newly created role. He will report to recently appointed Chief Executive Susan McGalla and be responsible for store operations, information technology, real estate, construction and merchandise planning. Seipel was previously president of Nebraska-based general merchandise discount retailer Pamida Discount Stores LLC.
OTHER NEWS
Federal officials accused Barry Minkow of using his status as an FBI informer to obtain insider information for stock trades, including a recent effort to short shares of Miami-based developer Lennar Corp., which runs day-to-day operations from Aliso Viejo. Lennar shares saw a steep selloff in 2008 after Minkow made allegations about the company. Minkow, who has previously spent time in federal prison for securities fraud, is expected to plead guilty to the current charges and could face a five-year sentence. Minkow earlier released information on Irvine-based Microsemi Corp. that proved damaging to the company’s stock. He did not face charges in that incident.
ECONOMIC INDICATOR
down: Outlook on summer jobs in Irvine, where an annual summer youth job fair was canceled for the first time in 16 years due to a lack of participation by employers. The state’s Employment Development Department cut two similar job fairs here from its yearly schedule of four, with plans for events in Orange and Anaheim on April 30.
