Michael Colglazier has a thing for outer space.
A decade ago, the longtime Disney vet ran the company’s Animal Kingdom theme park in Florida, where he oversaw the planning behind a new galactic land based on the movie “Avatar.”
Named president of Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort in 2013, Colglazier headed the planning for the $1B-valued Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which opened last year under the watch of Josh D’Amaro (promoted this year to the role of president of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products).
Since 2019, Colglazier headed as president and managing director of Disney Parks International, but kept ties to OC, living in the area and since 2016 serving as chairman of UCI’s CEO Roundtable.
The roundtable counts some 80 business leaders as members and is designed to support the development and well-being of UCI and area businesses.
Any of those 80 execs who still dream of being an astronaut might want to remain friendly with Colglazier, who last week took his first full-time non-Disney job in about 30 years: he’s the new CEO of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space tourism company that’s moving closer to debuting its commercial service.
“Michael’s long and distinguished career at one of the world’s leading customer experience brands provides a natural fit with Virgin’s culture,” Branson said last week.
The cost of a seat on the roughly two-hour spaceflight: about $250,000. Virgin said it had more than 600 reservations as of a few months ago, collecting about $80 million in deposits.
One way to move up in line: Regulatory filings indicate Colglazier’s employment contract allows him a seat on a forthcoming spaceflight, with up to three guests.
Shares of Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) rose some 20% after the hiring announcement. The New Mexico-based firm has a $4.4 billion market cap.
Pimco had a very good second quarter.
How good? Assets at the Newport Beach-based money manager rose $140 billion to $1.92 trillion. And its Extended Duration Fund (PEDIX) is up 32% year-to-date. Not bad at all for a bond fund, notes our Peter J. Brennan.
It’s not all bonds to thank for Pimco’s recent gains; see this page’s story on how the firm is expanding its commercial real estate holdings.
Investor interest in electric vehicles appears to be at an all-time high, thanks to the performance of Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA), whose nearly $280 billion valuation is more than that of Ford, Toyota and General Motors combined.
One local beneficiary: Irvine’s Karma Automotive. The successor company to luxury hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive earlier this month raised $100 million in funding, a deal the Business Journal reported on last week.
Henrik Fisker, whose first namesake company went bankrupt in 2013, has a new EV venture out of L.A., also called Fisker. Last week, a deal to take the 4-year-old company public was announced. It values the firm (which aims to bring an electric SUV running in the $40,000 range to market by 2022) at some $2.9 billion.
For more on how the super-charged EV market has just made a billionaire out of one local auto exec, see next week’s Business Journal, which includes our OC’s Wealthiest special report.
