Greg Merage was navigating “below the radar.” Then he received the Rising Star Award at the UCI Merage School’s real estate luncheon and now it’s out: In the past 12 months, the nephew of multimillionaire B-school namesake Paul Merage has snapped up 1 million square feet of real estate—apartments, hotels and shopping centers in Southern California and neighboring states. Greg, CEO of Newport Beach-based Stoneridge Capital Partners, is just 40. But he has seasoned advisers, including Dick Sim and William Gaboury …
After thanking the above-mentioned real estate crowd of 500 for turning out, Lifetime Achievement winner John O’Donnell kidded, “In this economy you probably didn’t have anything better to do anyway” … Wylie Aitken, rubbing it in: “Scott Baugh owes me a dinner based on the marvelous performance of Fiorina and Van Tran” …
Scott McGregor, CEO of Irvine chipmaker Broadcom, shared some numbers with an OC Biz Council audience. He was the third employee at Adobe and the “300th-something” hire of Microsoft. Broadcom is adding 550 employees a quarter worldwide, but not many to its California workforce of nearly 5,000: “California has some of the most stupid labor laws.” Starting pay for an engineering grad is about $100,000. Broadcom is buying companies at the pace of two per quarter with an M&A group that consists of “one and a half people.” That’s possible because acquisitions are made within Broadcom’s 20 operating units—“invent the best and buy the rest.” Sales are up nearly 50% year-over-year and will hit $10 billion “fairly soon,” fueled by demand for broadband from China’s “surging middle class.” “Obamacare” will increase corporate health costs by 15%, “probably with more costs to come.” He quipped, “Our legal department is now a profit center.” Without identifying Qualcomm by name, McGregor said Broadcom “took a punch from the schoolyard bully” but “we got about a billion dollars out of them” …
Philanthropist Kelly Smith, ex of Quest Software Executive Chairman Vinny Smith, visited the Dalai Lama in Dharamasala, India. His Holiness will return the favor May 4, when he comes to UCI as part of a series co-sponsored by Kelly Smith’s Center for Living Peace. Other speakers will be actress Charlize Theron on Dec. 4 and billionaire industrialist Richard Branson on Jan. 25 …
U.S. Rep. John Campbell doesn’t share Peter Ueberrorth’s enthusiasm for the job U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez did in delaying a provision of the healthcare reform bill so that Hoag Memorial could open its 70-bed orthopedic institute in Irvine: “That is a good thing? It’s a little like the captor who starves the prisoners and then becomes their hero by giving them enough food so they don’t die.”
