For a business line without too much local cachet, the soon-to-be-shuttered marketing services division of Santa Ana-based CoreLogic Inc. has a sizeable market value assigned to it.
Data and analytics company CoreLogic said earlier this month that it plans to close the division as part of its ongoing evaluation of assets that aren’t central to its business.
It’s the latest business line the company has opted to divest since completing its split with Santa Ana-based title insurance company First American Financial Corp. last year.
The company will record a charge of about $140 million against its third-quarter earnings as a result of the decision to close the marketing services business, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Not too much else was disclosed in the SEC filing, which didn’t discuss the nature of the division’s business, whether a sale was considered, or the number of overall employees who work in the division that will be affected by the decision.
CoreLogic provides a variety of consumer, financial and property data to lenders, corporations and government agencies, with a market value of about $1.2 billion.
It employs about 750 people locally, and announced late this summer plans to move headquarters to the Irvine Spectrum’s 40 Pacifica office tower next year.
CoreLogic’s marketing services division is the remaining piece of a business line that was largely sold off last year.
When CoreLogic went through an internal restructuring last year, around the time of its split from First American, the marketing services division was part of the company’s employer, legal and marketing services segment. That was one of the company’s three core reporting segments, and brought in about $306 million in revenue in 2009.
CoreLogic later said it wanted to focus more on its larger data, analytics and business information segments. And it decided to put the employer, legal and marketing segment on the sales block.
Palo Alto-based Symphony Technology Group paid $265 million in late 2010 for the employer and legal business lines of the segment, but not the marketing services business.
The move to close the marketing services division follows CoreLogic’s late August announcement that it was considering a sale of the entire company, among other potential strategic moves.
It has hired New York-based investment bank Greenhill & Co. to serve as a financial adviser for that process, which could include an outright sale, stock and bond buybacks, or cutting more business lines.
Ontario Dealings
Irvine land brokerage Whittlesey Doyle says it is having success selling to Orange County-based investors and homebuilders for a big residential development under way in Ontario.
The company said it has worked on $48 million worth of deals since last year at the New Model Colony project there. It’s an 8,200-acre former dairyland site that’s expected to be built out over the next 20 or so years.
The five transactions Whittlesey Doyle recently worked on at the master-planned community total more than 300 acres and should hold close to 1,400 homes.
A number of the brokerage’s sales—including the most recent transaction, which closed in late Septem-ber—involved OC-based companies.
Last month saw Anaheim Hills-based investment firm RCCD Inc. buy about 79 acres of land, expected to hold about 360 homes, for an undisclosed price. The seller was Ontario Area 23 Homes LLC, an entity owned by U.S. Bank.
“This was the last of the bank REO assets in the area and we don’t anticipate any more will come on the market,” said Les Whittlesey, a founding principal at Whittlesey Doyle.
RCCD also was part of a venture—along with a unit of San Diego developer Genstar Development Co.—that bought a 64-acre site at the New Model Colony development that should hold about 290 homes.
In a third deal, RCCD earlier this year bought 58 acres of land at the development, which should hold an additional 229 homes, from San Diego-based California Bank & Trust.
Santa Ana-based CV Communities LLC, a division of urban-infill builder City Ventures LLC focusing on inland development, also has bought land at the New Model Colony project, snapping up 38 acres of land that should hold 143 homes. That land was sold by U.S. Bank.
Faris Lee Hire
Irvine-based retail brokerage Faris Lee Investments has hired a big local name to expand its investment banking operations.
The company just added Terry Thompson as a managing director. He will lead Faris Lee’s institutional client growth as well as account management.
Thompson, a 25-year real estate industry veteran, most recently worked for WCB Properties in Newport Beach. In 2008 he served as president for the Southern California chapter of commercial real estate trade group NAIOP.
Thompson’s hiring is an important element in the firm’s overall ability to deliver a range of services to a growing institutional client base across the U.S., according to the company.
