The Amazon Effect, Part 1: Cal State Fullerton is still figuring out plans for how to best use the $40 million gift from MacKenzie Scott and her husband, Dan Jewett; the largest philanthropic donation in CSUF’s 64-year history.
“While we are still in the very early stages of allocating this gift, all decisions will be driven by our strategic plan and core mission of student success; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and faculty research, support, and retention,” CSUF President Fram Virjee said in a letter to the school.
Scott is the ex-wife of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, and is reportedly worth some $60 billion. She and Jewett announced $2.7 billion in giving to a variety of causes this month; CSUF was the only OC-based recipient.
While it stands as CSUF’s biggest philanthropic gift, the $40 million donation isn’t the biggest check the school has received from a multi-billionaire this year.
The Business Journal in April was first to report on the school’s nearly $50 million sale of two buildings it owned in the Irvine Spectrum area, which had served as its South OC campus.
Those buildings were bought by TGS Management LLC, the secretive Irvine hedge fund led by local billionaire C. Frederick Taylor.
The Amazon Effect, Part 2: In 2011, Palo Alto-based real estate investor Menlo Equities paid a reported $47 million for Irvine Crossings, a nearly 400K-square-foot data center and industrial property, just off Von Karman Avenue, near the airport.
Five years later, Menlo landed Amazon to lease about half of the site; it was the first Irvine distribution hub for the e-commerce giant, which has since vastly expanded its local presence.
This month, Irvine Crossings sold again, the Business Journal has learned. The price: nearly $180 million. It’s the largest industrial deal reported in OC since 2019.
See next week’s print edition of the Business Journal for more on the blockbuster transaction.
Ron Simon may not have written his final chapter in the cabinet-making business.
His new memoir, “Tell me why I can’t; winning my battle with China by making it in America,” notes his exasperation at seeing how American Woodmark—which in 2017 bought his last cabinet-maker, RSI Home Products, for $1.1 billion—sought out government intervention to compete with Chinese manufacturers.
“Rather than play the role of the victim to an unfair oppressor and look for government-sponsored lifesavers, America’s greatest companies have succeeded by out-innovating and outcompeting rivals,” he writes.
Simon also notes his and his other trusted execs’ three-year non-compete agreements with American Woodmark expired at the end of 2020.
The “thought of getting back into the cabinet business still lingers in all our minds. So stay tuned,” he writes.
See page 47 for excepts from Simon’s memoir, and then buy the book from the Horatio Alger Award winner. It’s a great read.
