Automotive
The Chapter 11 plan for Costa Mesa-based Fisker Automotive Inc. got approval from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Wanxiang America Corp. bought the luxury hybrid automaker in February for $149.2 million in a bankruptcy auction and said it wanted to resume production of Fisker’s Karma sedan and a second-generation model.
Healthcare
Irvine-based Allergan Inc. filed a federal lawsuit contending hostile suitor Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and activist investor Bill Ackman engaged in insider trading. The Botox maker is battling Canada-based Valeant and Ackman—whose Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund owns 9.7% of Allergan— to stay independent. Allergan said in its suit that Pershing Square bought $3.2 billion of its shares from February to April while being fully aware of Valeant’s takeover intentions. The drug maker said Ackman’s actions deprived selling shareholders of $1.2 billion in value gains. It said Valeant and Pershing Square “have also failed to disclose material facts” concerning the role of Robert Ingram, a Valeant director who had overlapping service on Allergan and Valeant’s boards through 2012—a time Valeant had said it was considering a bid for Allergan. The suit alleges some of the information that hasn’t been disclosed included whether Ingram “directly or indirectly shared any information he learned in the course of his Allergan board service” with Valeant or individuals associated with Ackman (see related story, page 1).
Newport Beach-based Cold Genesys Inc. said it received $13.6 million in a first round of funding. It’s developing viral immunotherapies for bladder cancer and said it would use the money to advance an ongoing clinical trial for its lead compound, CG0070.
Newport Beach-based Alphaeon Corp. said it bought Physician Recommended Nutriceuticals LLC in a deal it said could be worth up to $55 million. Plymouth Meeting, Pa.-based Physician Recommended develops specialty omega-3s and related products to treat dry eye and macular degeneration.
Real Estate
Landowner and philanthropist Alice O’Neill Avery died July 22 at 97. Her family’s ranch, Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores, was turned into masterplanned communities in Orange County, including Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo. She was the mother of Tony Moiso, head of Rancho Mission Viejo, the family’s 23,000-acre property.
Grocery chain Whole Foods Market will anchor a new shopping center in the Irvine Spectrum next to the Los Olivos apartment complex. The 40,000-square-foot grocery store is the first tenant announced for Irvine Company’s Los Olivos Marketplace, which will go up just off the San Diego (405) freeway at Irvine Center Drive. The 120,000-square-foot center is set to break ground in a few weeks, with completion scheduled for early 2016.
Services
MVE Institutional Inc. changed its name to SVA Architects Inc., said Ernesto Vasquez, the Santa Ana-based architecture firm’s chairman and chief executive. “Aside from our company name, nothing has changed,” Vasquez said in a statement.
Technology
More details emerged about job cuts at Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom Corp. Notices filed with the state show the company will shed 240 jobs at its headquarters, part of 630 cuts across California. They’re among 2,500 job cuts companywide as Broadcom winds down its baseband chip business. Meanwhile, the company is one of the latest large technology companies to be pressured to provide employment data on race and gender as concerns rise over diversity in the influential sector. Jesse Jackson, founder of Chicago-based civil rights advocacy group Rainbow Push Coalition, told the Business Journal that the organization plans to file a freedom-of-information request with U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to acquire that demographic data from Broadcom, its San Diego-based rival Qualcomm Inc., Amazon.com, Oracle Corp. and Yelp Inc.
Newport Beach-based private equity investor Kodiak Capital Group LLC made a $3 million commitment to fund Eventure Interactive Inc. in Costa Mesa, a developer of social communications-oriented mobile applications.
San Juan Capistrano startup GenieDB Inc. raised $3.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The cloud computing service provider, part of OC investor Stuart Frost’s tech incubator Frost Venture Partners, could raise an additional $500,000 in the funding round.
