Third-Tier Public Cos.: Small, Diverse, Murky
By SHERRI CRUZ
Orange County’s bottom 50 public companies by sales pale in size compared to their larger counterparts.
With $373 million in collective sales last year, the group is about 12% the size of the middle 50 companies and less than 1% of the top 50 companies.
But what the bottom 50 lack in size, they make up in diversity, ambition, and, in some cases, intrigue.
This week the Business Journal ranks the bottom 50 public companies based here by sales. It’s the last in a three-part series on the county’s public companies. The list of the top 50 ran on April 12 while the middle 50 appeared in the April 26 issue.
This week’s list reflects a correction to an error we discovered in our top 50 list. That list should have included Santa Ana circuit board maker TTM Technologies Inc. at No. 48 with $180.3 million in 2003 sales.
We’ve reflected the change here by listing Garden Grove-based Hycor Biomedical Inc. as No. 101 on this week’s list, down from No. 100 on last week’s list.
This week’s group is an assorted mix of medical, technology, finance and other companies. It’s likely the oddest mix of the public company lists.
The companies include a maker of industrial furnaces, a seller of vitamins and other supplements and an oil and gas exploration company.
The majority of the companies trade on the low-profile over-the-counter exchange or on Pink Sheets.
The largest company, Hycor Biomedical, counted 2003 sales of $19.8 million.
The spot for the smallest saw a tie, with AMDL Inc., a maker of non-invasive cancer blood tests, and Ista Pharmaceuticals Inc., both ranking at No. 149 with sales of $280,000 last year.
Because of the nature of the group, things are murkier on this list than on the prior two public company rankings.
For some companies in the lower ranks of the list, employment numbers are hard to come by. In some cases, revenue and profit are a year old, because that’s when some last reported numbers.
Collective Results
As a group, the bottom 50 public companies saw a drop in sales and employment, though their collective loss wasn’t as bad as a year earlier.
Their $373 million sales tally was off 6% from a year earlier. Where employment numbers were available, the companies count 1,204 workers in OC, down 35% from a year earlier. Companywide employment in the group was down 22% to 2,265 people.
Hycor, which makes medical testing products, increased 2003 sales 6% to nearly $20 million, while net income was up 72% to $2 million.
The company, which focuses on the allergy, autoimmune and urinalysis testing markets, also had a strong first quarter. Its net income for the period was up 68% to $557,000. Sales for the quarter were up 12% to $5.5 million.
Rounding out the top five:
No. 102 Pacific Premier Bancorp Inc., a Costa Mesa holding company for Pacific Premier Bank; No. 103 Lake Forest-based MAI Systems Corp., a seller of data storage gear; No. 104 Tustin’s Sunwest Bank; and No. 105 Irvine-based Procom Technology Inc., which sells data storage products.
Many of the companies on the list are technology or biotechnology related. The rest offer a mishmash of products and services.
No. 118 Brea-based HomeSeekers.com Inc. provides online real estate searches for house hunters.
No. 130 Radiant Technology Corp. of Fullerton makes conveyor-belt furnaces for electronics makers.
No. 134 GolfGear International Inc. of Huntington Beach makes golf equipment. And
No. 144 Mindset Interactive Corp. is an Irvine-based Internet advertising company that does e-mail and pop-up ads.
GolfGear was founded by a stroke of luck, according to the company. It invented and patented “forged insert technology” for clubs, though at the time inserts weren’t allowed.
In 1992, the United States Golf Association changed the rule, allowing inserts in clubs. GolfGear’s sales for the 12 months ended September were up 36% to $2 million.
Some of the biggest gainers in terms of sales included No. 135 Trestle Holdings Inc., No. 138 Network Installation Corp. and No. 123 Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc., all of Irvine.
Trestle had sales of nearly $2 million, up from nothing a year earlier, and a net loss of $1.8 million, up from $890,000 a year earlier.
The company sells scanners and other gear that let pathologists view microscope images digitally and share information online. Customers include the Army and the University of Michigan.
Trestle once was Sunland Entertainment Co. and licensed cartoons. It sold its entertainment holdings in 2003 to focus on biotechnology.
Cortex is a neuroscience drug company that licenses compounds from the University of California, Irvine.
It had 2003 sales of $7 million, up 53% from a year earlier. The company’s drugs are being tested for the treatment of ailments such as Alzheimer’s, depression and schizophrenia.
Cortex had some big press when it was featured on the “Today” show in November as one of the companies tackling memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s.
Acacia Research Corp., the Newport Beach company that was at the top of the third tier of public companies two years ago, came in at No. 139 this time around.
It boosted sales 30% to $1 million and cut its losses to $24 million.
One of Acacia’s businesses, Acacia Technologies Group, licenses audio and video streaming technology to media companies. Acacia’s CombiMatrix Group develops research products for studying genes.
Seven companies on last year’s third-tier list moved up to the second group that ran last week.
They are: Biolase Technology Inc., Endocare Inc., Pacific Mercantile Bancorp, Micro Therapeutics Inc., Raining Data Corp., CAM Commerce Solutions Inc. and SRS Labs Inc.
Newcomers
Newcomers to the third-tier include: Pacific Premier Bancorp; Trestle Holdings; No. 110 Pro-Dex Inc., a Santa Ana holding company for Micro Motors Inc. of Santa Ana and Oregon Micro Systems Inc. of Beaverton, Ore.; No. 120 Entrada Networks Inc., an Irvine maker of computer networking gear; and No. 138 Network Installation Corp., an Irvine network service company.
Companies ranked No. 142 and lower all are new to the list except No. 145 Kanakaris Wireless Inc. of Newport Beach and No. 149 AMDL Inc. of Tustin. All bottom nine companies had sales of less than $1 million last year.
Those that moved off the list: Laguna Hills-based Nuway Medical Inc., which no longer qualified because of low sales; US West Homes Inc. of Laguna Beach, which appears to be out of business; Huntington Beach’s Avalon Digital Marketing Systems Inc., which moved to Provo, Utah; and Go Online Networks Corp. of Buena Park, which moved to Chatsworth.
Acquisitions took other companies off the list.
Gish Biomedical Inc. of Rancho Santa Margarita was bought by Woburn, Mass.-based Cardio Tech International Inc. And Aliso Viejo-based Medstone International Inc. now is part of Prime Medical Services Inc. of Austin, Texas.
