Other news items of interest from the Orange County Business Journal
Irvine-based real estate and mortgage data and analytics provider CoreLogic Inc. paid $78 million for CDS Business Mapping LLC, a Middletown, Conn.-based maker of underwriting software. CDS, founded in 1994, provides underwriting information to insurance carriers, agents and brokers. It will be integrated into CoreLogic’s Spatial Solutions business unit, the company said.
The managing director who has overseen Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co.’s equity funds is leaving the company and considering a run for statewide office in California as a Republican. Neel Kashkari joined Pimco in 2009, when the world’s biggest bond-fund manager started to expand into equity funds. He has helped launch six stock mutual funds since then. There currently are no Republicans holding statewide office in California, a roster of eight positions that range from governor to insurance commission, and the party holds fewer than a third of the seats in both houses of the state’s legislature. A run for office would be a return to public service for Kashkari, who worked at Goldman Sachs & Co. in San Francisco before going to the U.S. Treasury Department in 2006. Kashkari, who hails from Akron, Ohio, and is in his early 40s, was an aide to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson when he was tapped to oversee the $700 billion federal bailout at the onset of the recent recession two years later. Kashkari became a public face of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), drawing steady criticism from Congress, Wall Street and other precincts. He left the job after seven months and took a hiatus before joining Pimco (see OC Insider item, page 3).
Health Net Inc. has signed new multi-year deals with three Orange County hospitals and five others throughout California, reversing an earlier decision to terminate contracts with them. Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Los Alamitos Medical Center, Placentia-Linda Hospital were among the hospitals to re-establish ties with the insurer. Those three all are owned by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. Woodland Hills-based Health Net had ended its contracts with Tenet last month after the parties were unable to come to terms.
Aliso Viejo-based Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. said it has entered into agreements to sell a four-hotel portfolio in Rochester, Minn., for $230 million. The hotel investor also provided improved fourth-quarter and full 2012 earnings guidance. Minnesota hotels being sold by the company include the 660-room Kahler Grand, the 271-room Kahler Inn & Suites, the 202-room Marriott Rochester and the 89-room Residence Inn by Marriott Rochester. A commercial laundry facility is included in the deal. The name of the buyer of the properties was not disclosed. The deal is scheduled to close this month.
Cisco Systems Inc. has struck a deal to sell its home networking group based in Irvine to Belkin International Inc. in Los Angeles. Financial terms of the sale of Linksys LLC, once a “key part” of San Jose-based Cisco’s consumer electronics strategy, were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in March at a price much lower than the $500 million Cisco paid local entrepreneurs Victor and Janie Tsao for the company in 2003. The sale catapulted the duo to the Orange County Business Journal’s OC Wealthiest List, where they’ve held the designation since.
Community members presented the Westminster City Council $60,000 raised in a two-week campaign to pay for security and other city services for the Feb. 10 Tet Parade marking the Lunar New Year. City officials had told community members that they would have to cover the costs or cancel the annual parade, which draws crowds of thousands and coverage on Vietnamese-language cable channels in the U.S. and overseas.
ECONOMIC INDICATOR
UP: Sales of new cars at Orange County auto dealers, which increased nearly 24% in 2012, according to a year-end report from the Newport Beach-based Orange County Automobile Dealers Association. Registrations of new light vehicles, which generally reflect local sales, totaled 149,630 in 2012, compared to 120,800 in 2011. New-car sales saw a 12% gain nationwide last year, to about 14.4 million.
