Two things I expect at events like National Philanthropy Day, Wooden Floor’s Step Beyond Breakfast or our own Civic 50 OC luncheon: I’ll leave feeling better than when I came, and I’ll get my headline from Antis Roofing & Waterproofing founder and CEO Charles Antis (see above). Antis was 2017 honoree as Emerging Company in our inaugural Civic 50, and Charles was a presenter at our second event on Thursday at Hotel Irvine … he learned the culture of giving from august companies like Bank of America and Pacific Life and has paid it forward for 29 years, inspiring and leading the culture of giving while running his growing his company. Our Special Report on Civic 50 honorees starts on p. 19.
David Bahnsen doesn’t see a Black October emerging from last week’s market sell-off, or rising rates as the trigger. The managing partner and CIO of Newport Beach-based wealth manager Bahnsen Group appeared on both CNBC and Fox Business News last week, agreeing that there’s a rising rate problem, but primarily in Europe, where Italian-German bond yields, proxy of the wobbly Euro Zone, hit their widest spread since June 2013. Bahnsen concedes Big Tech is frothy and urges a flight to value, dividend stocks. He sees strong Q4 earnings goosed by the Trump Tax Act induced capital spending. Bhansen’s the king of all media these days: books, TV, radio, host of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and First Daughter Ivanka Trump last fall … along with Laila and Dryden Pence’s Pence Wealth Management, Bahnsen Group hit Forbes’ 2018 Top Wealth Advisors and Barron’s Fin’l Advisors Lists—know any other locally based money managers, or even bond kings, that have successfully deployed media ubiquity as an arrow in their marketing quiver?
Forgive OC Realtors if they’re thinking of downsizing their Christmas parties … mortgage rates are still historically low but hit a 7-year high, and as expected, the Trump Act mortgage-deduction takeaways and deduction limits are crimping home sales … softness, especially in the $1.5M to $2M range, and Steve Thomas’ monthly Reports on Housing shows just 2,108 resales closed in September, down 24% from September 2016 and 2017 and, eek, worst September since 2007, when only 1,334 homes changed hands at the cusp of the Great Recession.
Inspiration Point, True to Your School … Attended Vanguard University’s recent student-center groundbreaking in Costa Mesa … like most institutions, the 98-year-old liberal arts and professional studies Christian university had tough calls to make 10 years ago. Vanguard is highly respected but thinly endowed. “Many challenges. And a school, a business, has to be sustainable,” President Michael Beals told me. “We had to cut some sports and some under-enrolled programs. But we stayed true to our mission.”
This fall, Vanguard welcomed the largest freshmen class in its history.
