APPAREL
361 Degrees International Ltd., which bills itself as the second-largest athletic brand in China, has chosen Irvine for its North American headquarters. The brand hired several executives with recent ties to Asics America Corp.—another athletic based in Irvine. Jim Monahan, a former vice president of footwear for Asics America—a unit of Japan-based Asics Corp.—will be president of 361 Degrees USA. 361 Degrees USA said it plans to offer a variety of athletic and lifestyle footwear and apparel for men and women that
will be available this winter. The apparel and footwear company was founded in 2003. It is traded on Hong Kong exchange and has a market value of about $592 million.
ADVERTISING
Costa Mesa-based Casanova Pendrill lost the Latino-American portion of the Miller Lite advertising business. Omnicom Group Inc.’s Dieste won the account in a recent review that also led to a shift in the general market account to TBWA Worldwide. Dieste and TBWA are sister agencies. Casanova Pendrill, a unit of New York-based McCann under the umbrella of Interpublic Group of Cos., won the Miller Lite account a little more than a year ago. Miller Lite is a brand of MillerCoors, which spent $160 million on advertising Lite in 2013, according to New York-based Kantar Media.
BSH Home Appliances Corp. selected ELA Advertising as strategic, creative agency-of-record for its Thermador brand cookware. Both companies are in Irvine. Santa Ana-based DGWB Advertising & Communication had had the account since 2010. A statement by BSH brand marketing director Zach Elkin lauded ELA’s experience with consumer products and its integrated marketing abilities. ELA Chief Executive Andre Filip pledged “a fresh new perspective” to reach customers who cook often at home. His agency’s first task is a strategic awareness campaign aimed at that target audience, according to the companies. It’s the second parting of ways for DGWB and Thermador. The agency also handled the brand’s account from 1992 to 1995.
EDUCATION
University of California regents approved pay hikes for school heads and put new UC-Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman’s salary at $485,000, $93,000 more than that of his predecessor, Michael Drake.
An offshoot group of the Occupy Wall Street movement paid off $3.9 million in loans owed by 2,761 students of a Corinthian Colleges Inc. school, according to news reports. A crowd-funded group called Rolling Jubilee paid less than $107,000—three cents on the dollar—to a third party who had bought the debt. Rolling Jubilee then forgave the loans. A nondisclosure agreement prevents the third party from being named, the reports said. The paid-off debts came to about $1,400 for each of Everest College’s students. Santa Ana-based Corinthian Colleges is embroiled in allegations by various government agencies of “illegal predatory lending” and other misdeeds and is winding down its business by selling or closing campuses and programs. It recently had about 72,000 students at 107 campuses in the U.S. and Canada.
HEALTHCARE
Anthem Blue Cross joined with MemorialCare Health System in Fountain Valley and other hospitals to form the Vivity health plan for Southern California employers. The plan encompasses the insurer and seven hospital groups in Orange and Los Angeles counties. It starts with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System as a customer. The HMO includes the groups’ doctors offices, clinics and other facilities and becomes a direct competitor of Kaiser Permanente. MemorialCare owns Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley and Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, with campuses in Laguna Hills and San Clemente.
MEDIA
Adaptive Medias Inc. raised $5.2 million from two investors by selling 2.13 million shares of its common stock at $2.25 per share. The Irvine-based provider of programmatic advertising is traded over the counter and has a market value of about $28 million. It said it plans to use the investment to “expand its customer acquisition through accelerated sales and marketing efforts” and to bring its “end-to-end multi-screen video solution to market.”
