Women-owned businesses increased their share of Orange County’s economic pie in the past year by posting gains in both revenue and employment, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
“These are exciting times,” said Cindy Mairena, owner and president of No. 21 Yorba Linda-based Office Solutions Business Products & Services Inc., which boosted revenue 29% last year to $18 million and OC employees 12% to 76.
The women-owned companies on the list, which ranks by revenue OC businesses in which women own at least a 51% stake, had combined 1999 revenue of $1.27 billion.
Revenue for five of the companies that declined to provide figures are Business Journal estimates,including No. 1 Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. and No. 3 In-N-Out Burger. When those five are excluded from the mix, the 20 remaining businesses posted an aggregate year-to-year increase in revenue of 11%, to $685 million.
Of the companies that reported revenue, 14 posted gains. Two reported no change and four saw drops in revenue.
Combined company-wide employment among the 25 women-owned businesses on this year’s list, including estimates, rose 13% from last year, to 14,385. OC jobs increased to 5,007, up 7%, more than twice the job growth rate of the county as a whole. The larger company-wide rate is attributable to the fact that Edwards and In-N-Out grew principally outside OC in the past year.
OC’s largest women-owned businesses come from a variety of industries: entertainment, restaurants, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, insurance, security, hospitality, travel, transportation and retail services, among others. There are three office furniture dealers, two human resources firms and two in the petroleum industry. Other companies on the list are singular representatives of their industries.
Like the companies on the Business Journal’s minority-owned business list, women-owned companies are indistinguishable from the general business landscape. So additions to the list are just as often the result of ongoing Business Journal research as they are the result of companies moving here or growing revenue to crack into the largest 25. Newcomers this year include: No. 2 Villa Ford of Orange, No. 6 Systems Source Inc. of Newport Beach, No. 15 McMahan Business Interiors in Irvine and No. 25 Santa Ana-based ProCare One Inc.
Raising the Bar
The combination of newcomers and revenue increases at the bulk of the companies on the list helped the women-owned businesses continue to raise the bar in terms of minimum yearly revenue required to earn a spot among the largest 25 firms. This year’s cutoff: $16 million. In 1996, $5 million in annual revenue was enough to earn the No. 25 spot on the list. That number has increased each year,to $7.4 million for the 1997 list, $9 million in 1998 and $12 million in 1999.
Companies that were on last year’s list but missed the cut this year are:
n Last year’s No. 22, TriPole Corp., Fountain Valley, with $15.9 million in 1999 revenue.
n Last year’s No. 25, Mission Viejo-based Merit Property Management, which dropped from the list this year, despite increasing its revenue 25% from $12 million to $15 million.
n APR Consulting, Tustin, No. 24 last year, which also dropped off though it reported a 5% increase to $13.2 million in 1999 revenue.
At the top of the list again this year is Newport Beach-based Edwards Theatres, with estimated revenue of $350 million. The company has increased the number of its movie screens to 840 from about 750 last year as part of an aggressive expansion plan. Edwards opened theaters in Houston, Valencia and Temecula in the past year, but has added no new theaters in OC recently. Earlier this year, the company said it would close 25 aging theaters, including 10 in OC, a move that has resulted in legal disputes with some of the theaters’ landlords, who have raised questions about the company’s financial health.
Irvine-based In-N-Out Burger, No. 2 on the list the past two years, dropped a notch to No. 3, supplanted by Villa Ford in Orange. The burger chain, which operates 143 restaurants in California, Arizona and Nevada and had an estimated $111 million in 1999 revenue, was recently ranked No. 1 in overall customer satisfaction in a survey of more than 87,000 fast-food consumers conducted by Villa Park-based Sandelman & Associates.
In all, the top three companies accounted for $596 million of the $1.3 billion in revenue among the 25 companies on the list. They also chipped in 47% of the OC jobs and 70% of the company-wide employment.
The company with the biggest gain in revenue was Team Petroleum, Huntington Beach, which saw its revenue climb a hefty 53% to $52 million, tying it for the No. 6 spot with newcomer Systems Source Inc., Newport Beach.
Kristin Schaffner-Irvin, principal of Team Petroleum, credited automation and the Internet for much of her company’s increase in revenue, saying the firm is better able to monitor inventory and communicate quantity and pricing information to clients.
“We do everything on the Internet,” she said. “Before all our clients didn’t use the Internet. Now even mechanics in the shops use it.”
Systems Source’s owner and president, Rosemarie Smith, attributed growth at her company to a good economy and an expanded product line. Smith said the company plans to expand its LA office next year.
“But we’ll always be headquartered here,” she said.
Other companies with double-digit revenue increases were No. 14 Lindora Inc., Office Solutions Business Products & Services, McMahan Business Interiors, ProCare One, No. 5 Abbott Resource Group, No. 11 Allen Tel Products Inc., No. 12 Frieda’s Inc. and No. 19 Creative Design Consultants Inc.
The companies that posted revenue declines were No. 23 Bargain Warehouse, No. 13 Eastwood Insurance Services Inc., No. 19 iBASEt, and No. 4 Pool Water Products.
The biggest drop, of 17% to $17.5 million, came at Fullerton-based Bargain Warehouse. Rhonda Crabtree, president of the retail, wholesale and auction house, said she has tried to restructure the company so that it has “more profit and less overhead.”
“We were very labor-intensive,” Crabtree said, adding she has used a wider variety of sources for products to reduce labor needs and added some Internet sales. The Internet “has done pretty well for us,” she said. “And you only need one person to do it.”
IBASEt, a software products and systems integration company in Lake Forest, had a reversal of fortune with a 6% decline in 1999 after a 44% increase in 1998. Vic Sial, the company’s president, said the company was heavily affected by the founder’s death last year.
“But we’re back on track for growth now,” he said.
Employment Growth
On the job front, 12 companies grew their work forces, while six were unchanged and seven had cutbacks.
McMahan Business Interiors had the biggest company-wide employment growth, 50% to 42 employees, to go along with a 28% revenue growth to $23 million. Weight-management company Lindora had the biggest boost in OC jobs,64%,to keep pace with company growth. Cynthia Graff, president and CEO, said the company added clinical staff to bolster the medical side of the business and corporate staff to accommodate future growth.
“We’re looking for another 30% growth (in revenue) this year,” Graff said.
The biggest percentage employment drop (50%, to 50) came at Orange-based Systems Integrated. A company spokesperson attributed the decline to changing company projects that require fewer contract workers.
One other company, Orange County Wholesale Electric, which was No. 12 a year ago, dropped from the list due to a merger with San Diego-based One Source Distributors last July. And last year’s No. 13, Irvine-based The Heritage Escrow Co., previously a woman-owned company, last year sold a 50% stake in the company to Santa Ana-based First American Corp.
International Bay Clubs Inc., No. 10 on the list, was nearly sold to former county CEO William Popejoy in the fall. Last week, Popejoy and club owner Beverly Ray filed lawsuits against one another over the proposed sale.
