Gavin Likes It; OCMA Sticks to Mission

A bit of chit-chat over a brisket sandwich early last week offered a surprising indicator that OC Hall-of-Famer Gavin Herbert wasn’t at all sold on the notion that Pfizer would wrap up its buy of Allergan PLC, the latest iteration of the company he founded. It wasn’t long before Wall Street and everyone else followed Herbert to the same conclusion—after the Treasury Department derailed the deal by essentially cancelling the benefit of a tax-inversion that Allergan would have brought via its on-the-books HQ in Ireland … The same lunchtime chat gave the clear impression that Herbert likes Allergan’s current position in the market just fine without a Pfizer combo. Allergan was bought by Actavis for $72.5 billion last year, and the combined outfit retained the Allergan name for its longstanding cachet … Allergan’s operations at its Irvine campus remain significant, with about 2,000 employees now and the chance to increase as the company gets on with life after the Pfizer deal. Don’t forget that Allergan has gone public, gotten acquired, been spun out, and spun out businesses of its own during its nearly 50-year run in OC. Who knows what the future holds for its operations here? (see related story, page 1) … Anyone else notice that the feds are having an extraordinary effect on the marketplace in OC lately? It was the Justice Department that derailed L.A. Times’ parent Tribune Publishing’s top bid in a bankruptcy auction for Freedom Communications and its OC Register last month (see related story, page 1) … Props on Pops: to the Orange County Museum of Art for keeping its mind on its mission even as controversy swirls around plans to sell its place in Newport Center to residential developer Related Companies of California. The museum hopes to put money from a sale toward a custom-built place next to the Segerstrom Center, but it will likely still be over on San Clemente Drive for the debut of Pop Art Design—a recently nailed-down exhibit you can expect to hear more about soon. This one should hold practical as well as artsy appeal under the auspices of the Vitra Museum—an outgrowth of the German furniture maker of the same name—in conjunction with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. It keys on how designs of everyday products during the 1950s influenced the Pop Art movement that culminated in the 1970s with Andy Warhol making so much of soup cans. It also looks at how designers took cues from artists to push their work forward. Sounds like the seed-bed for today’s digital age—and another strong swing by OCMA Director Todd Smith … Newport Coaster, hedge funder, ex-UCI prof and inventor of card-counting Ed Thorp must have done his usual thorough job when he taught one-time student Joe Lacob—now a Silicon Valley VCer and one of the owners of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors—how to play black jack. Lacob recently told the New York Times that he’s won $1 million or more at black jack tables on nine occasions. Hubris? You decide—his ball team dropped a couple of games right after Jacob’s comments, putting them on a tight-rope as they seek a record-setting 73 regular-season wins … Ladies first at the upcoming Segerstrom Center Arts and Business Leadership dinner, where Zee Allred will be honored with a Distinguished Leader Award and Ashleigh Aitken is in line for the Rising Leader Award. Rock ’n’ Roll Hall-of-Famer Jackson Browne will provide entertainment.