AUTOMOTIVE
Irvine-based fintech firm AutoGravity, which provides auto financing through smartphones, signed up another automaker: Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. Through the collaboration, consumers will be able to select any Nissan vehicle and see finance offers on their mobile devices from NMAC within minutes, the companies said.
— Peter J. Brennan
HOSPITALITY
A Kimpton and a Le Meridien are two of the three hotels coming to a 5-acre site next to a Target store and across Harbor Boulevard from the Hyatt Regency Orange County in Garden Grove. The Business Journal reported in August that the $450 million project, down the street from Disneyland Resort, will get three hotels with 769 rooms, 39,000 square feet of meeting space, and 45,000 square feet of commercial uses.
— Paul Hughes
MANUFACTURING
Arbonne International LLC in Irvine and a sister company, Nature’s Gate, will be bought by Groupe Rocher on undisclosed terms. Arbonne is a direct seller of beauty, skincare, and nutritional products, and Nature’s Gate is a personal-care brand sold in retail stores. Ownership includes private equity firm Eos Partners LP in New York. The deal expands the Paris-based buyer’s direct-selling—doubling its direct-selling consultants to about 475,000, news reports said—and its reach in English-speaking markets. Arbonne founder Petter Mørck launched it in 1975 in Switzerland and moved it to the U.S. in 1980. It employs about 825, about 40% of whom are in OC. Arbonne said it will keep its Irvine operations.
— Subrina Hudson
Irvine-based FMH Aerospace changed hands for the second time in less than three years when it was sold last week for $235 million by private equity parent Industrial Growth Partners to AMETEK Inc. in Berwyn, Pa. FMH specializes in products that transfer fluids and gases at extreme temperatures and pressure for mission-critical applications for the aerospace, defense and space industries. The company was acquired in 2015 by San Francisco-based Industrial Growth Partners on undisclosed terms, ending an almost 60-year-run for FMH as a family-owned business.
— Chris Casacchia
KonaRed Corp. in San Clemente will work with L.A. Libations in El Segundo to expand its line of cold-brew coffee and other products. Terms of the agreement weren’t given but could involve an investment and distribution. L.A. Libations was started in 2009 by three former Coca-Cola Co. executives, and the Atlanta-based beverage giant holds a stake in the beverage incubator. KonaRed makes ready-to-drink cold-brew coffee, coffee beans, coffee fruit juices and a nutritional extract, many derived from the fleshy part of the coffee bean known as the cherry. It sells through retailers.
— Paul Hughes
MEDIA
Worldstage Inc., headquartered in Tustin and New York, named Rodney Miller chief financial officer. Miller, who previously served as chief financial officer at Irvine-based software firm AutoAlert, will be based out of the firm’s Tustin office. Worldstage specializes in events audio, video, lighting and engineering for Carnival Cruise Lines, Segerstrom Center for the Arts and NBA pregame shows and others. It has additional offices in San Carlos, Calif., Nashville, Tenn., and Secaucus, N.J.
— Subrina Hudson
TRANSPORTATION
The Orange County Transportation Authority broke ground on a $1.9 billion widening of the San Diego (I-405) Freeway. The 16-mile project between the 73 toll road in Costa Mesa near Newport Beach and the 605 Freeway near the Los Angeles County line is scheduled for completion in 2023.
— Hannah Mitchell
