Byron, Walter Ready to Bury Hatchet; Dana
Byron Roth and Walter Cruttenden have decided there’s too much to do out there to be mired in a legal spat. So the partners-turned-combatants are expected to shortly settle their year-old claims and counter claims, the Insider hears; they’re even on speaking terms again. Cruttenden left Cruttenden Roth, the firm that he founded, to start E*Offering, an E*Trade affiliate that lets on-line investors into IPOs; Roth sued after a number of key employees defected to E*Offering. Roth recently dropped Cruttenden’s name in renaming the firm Roth Capital Partners; as part of the settlement Walter would sell his remaining interest back to RCP. Ironically, Walter has been distanced from E*Offering’s operations since its move to the Bay Area; now it’s Byron who is entering the on-line IPO game (see David Orloff’s story, page 4). As for Walter, his Cruttenden Partners has been busy on a number of deals, including some with Bill Foley, whose Fidelity National was a party to Roth’s action against Walter until Fidelity sold its Roth stake earlier this year. And Walter will soon own stock in Wit Soundview Group (formerly Wit Capital) which, subject to shareholder approval, is buying E*Offering for $328 million The Terminator vs. the Terminally Boring? The Insider hears that Dana Rohrabacher is urging Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for California governor The kids of developers Gen. William Lyon and Chris Gibbs have a Web site devoted to their wedding. To learn how Bill Lyon and Christina Gibbs met and fell in love, to see pictures of Eze on the French Riviera where he proposed, to read the biographies of the wedding party and for more, go to www.lyonwedding.com. Oh, you’ll need to ask somebody who knows for the password It’s Marian Bergeson and Joe Dunn vs. Curt Pringle and John Moorlach to debate the county’s tobacco settlement initiatives at a luncheon Sept. 15 at the Irvine Hyatt Regency. “Let’s get ready to rumble,” says lobbyist and event coordinator Randy Smith. Paul Freeman will referee, er, moderate. Call (888) 246-7424 Happy fifth birthday to OC Weekly, a smart aleck that’s must reading in political circles and evidence, by golly, that OC is broad-minded enough to support an alternative paper Clarification of an Aug. 14 item: Tangible Assets Galleries has agreed to buy Gavelnet.com by Sept. 19, subject to conditions In a story entitled “Airport Hell,” the Sept. 4 Business Week includes a list of “six ways to make airlines run better.” One of the ways is to encourage the use of abandoned military fields, specifically, “El Toro in Orange County, Calif.”
