AMUSEMENT
Newport Beach-based Palace Entertainment Holdings LLC’s $430 million in debt is expected to be repaid as a result of its parent company’s recent initial public offering. Parques Reunidos Servicos Centrales SA in Madrid issued shares worth about $600 million in the IPO on Spanish stock exchanges on April 29. Palace owns or operates 22 leisure parks in 10 states. The parks are a smaller type of entertainment offering than an amusement or theme park like Disneyland Resort.
AUTOMOTIVE
Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. said it will take a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the parent company of Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc., for about $2.2 billion. The Japan-based automakers have “agreed to cooperate in areas including purchasing, common vehicle platforms, technology-sharing, joint plant utilization and growth markets,” Mitsubishi said in a statement. Nissan’s 34% equity stake will make it the largest shareholder, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Corp., and the Bank of Tokyo will continue “to maintain a significant collective” ownership.”
EDUCATION
New York-based litigation funder Bentham IMF committed $300,000 over the next three years to the newly launched Civil Justice Research Institute at the University of California-Irvine School of Law. The public company provides litigation finance to plaintiffs and investment capital to law firms for large disputes in the U.S. and for international arbitration. The institute will study factors it believes limit access to America’s court system.
Newport Beach-based St. Francis School of Law graduated its first class, with three law students. It calls itself the country’s first not-for-profit, online-only law school and is owned by Flint, Mich.-based Baker College, a for-profit enterprise. The law school was founded in Northern California and moved the headquarters of its online operations to Orange County in 2014. It’s registered with the state bar as an unaccredited distance-learning law school.
FINANCE
Kim Letch will become managing partner of Ernst & Young’s Orange County office on July 1, replacing John Belli, who will retire at the end of June after about 40 years with the firm. Letch has 24 years of experience with Ernst & Young. She’s a partner in the assurance and advisory group and leads its Strategic Growth Markets practice.
HEALTHCARE
Hoag Hospital opened a wellness center for low-income families, the Orange County Register reported. The center is housed in a two-story former office and hosts free space for 15 nonprofit groups offering services related to domestic violence prevention, aging, maternal health and other issues. A $5 million donation from the George Hoag Family Foundation is paying for Hoag staff and programs for five years. The center is named after Melinda Hoag Smith, whose family helped found the hospital.
A doctor in Anaheim was convicted along with a Pasadena doctor of Medicare fraud charges. Sri Wijegoonaratna, 61, was found guilty of seven counts of healthcare fraud, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The office said Wijegoonaratna, known as “Dr. J.,” and Boyao Huang, 43, of Pasadena, falsely certified that Medicare patients were terminally ill and qualified for hospice care, though most of the patients weren’t dying. A news release said that between March 2009 and June 2013, the doctors through Covina-based California Hospice Care submitted about $8.8 million in fraudulent bills to Medicare and Medi-Cal and that public health programs paid nearly $7.4 million.
RETAIL
Developer Shaheen Sadeghi and the city of Garden Grove entered into an agreement for Sadeghi to develop a mixed-use Cottage Industries project of shops, offices and cafe and market space near the city’s Civic Center, the Orange County Register reported. Sadeghi will adapt single-family Housing Authority homes for the development. He’s the developer of the Lab Antimall and The Camp retail developments in Costa Mesa and the Anaheim Packing House food hall.
