Mirman’s Break; Wang’s Keynote; Martini’s Passing

Publisher Rich Mirman might have caught a break in his bid to boost the OC Register’s value for the remaining investors who took a flyer on Aaron Kushner and Eric Spitz before their vision for the daily proved to be less than 20/20. The Gannett chain last week put out word that it’s shopping for dailies in markets with populations of between 1 million and 3 million. OC would likely fit the bill, even with its population at a bit more than 3 million. And that would mean there’s a potential buyer for the Register to provide some leverage for Mirman and crew amid a buzz that the L.A. Times has been interested but plenty patient, given the dearth of any other likely bidders until now … No one’s likely to come out of any deal involving the Register with the sort of dough that gets a person on our annual OC’s Wealthiest list, the centerpiece of this special issue (see pullout section for profiles). William Wang might rise a few spots on next year’s list, though, based on the IPO in the works for his Vizio consumer electronics brand, as our Chris Casacchia reports on page 1 … No timing set for Vizio’s debut on Wall Street, but you can circle Sept. 24 if you want to hear how Wang does it—that’s the date of his keynote address to the Business Journal’s inaugural Innovator of the Year Awards. Check ocbj.com for more info … Check page 75 for one of the several Data Drills our Jane Yu put together—the others are in the pullout section—to provide some at-a-glance context to OC’s Wealthiest. There’s a Croatian connection in the one on page 75, and Yu adds another courtesy of Latham & Watkins’ Cary Hyden, who happens to be on vacation in Croatia. Hyden checked in from over there to report that his trip will take a turn toward getting a look at the soccer team on the Adriatic coast recently bought by rich lister Vinny Smith. Hyden is a die-hard soccer fan to start with and knows Smith from his days handling legal work for Quest Software before its 2012 sale to Dell … Hyden also did yeoman’s work on Allergan’s successful effort to beat back a hostile bidder and on its eventual sale to Actavis—a drama that stretched out for much of last year and well into this one. Hyden did manage to burnish his soccer credentials amid all that, winging down to Brazil to catch a World Cup final between Germany and Argentina that turned out to be nearly as hard fought as the win first-time rich lister David Pyott (see related story, page 1) scored over Bill Ackman …There’s more than one kind of net worth in this world—a consideration brought to mind this week by Brent Martini, who sent along some thoughts about his recently deceased father, Bob Martini, a longtime leader of Orange County’s community of business during his days as boss of Bergen Brunswig in Orange, now part of Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen. “He defined success by the success of others around him,” says Brent. “It was never about him but about his associates.” The elder Martini passed away on June 20 … Election update: a busy campaign schedule in New Hampshire has led to a change of plans for the Jeb Bush fundraiser cited here last week. Lunch at Andrew and Karen Littlefair’s place this week has morphed in to breakfast at the home of Glenn and Mindy Stearns in Newport Coast next week.