Irvine Company update: Ray Wirta is staying on as “senior adviser” to oversee operations of the investment properties group, company chief Donald Bren’s money machine. Rick Gilchrist remains group president but will focus on acquisitions. The two join Bren on a new IPG operating committee …
It seems everyone is buzzing about the Bren imposter story (except Bren himself and those investigating the million-dollar bank scam). Retired Irvine Co. exec Martin Brower wonders how someone with a phony ID could deposit Bren’s $1.4 million IRS refund check: “When I go into a bank, in which I have been a long-time depositor, and try to deposit an extra large check (but not as large as Bren’s, the Insider presumes), I have to go through hoops.” The story, first reported by the OCBJ’s Mark Mueller, was widely disseminated last week …
Tiger Woods met with board members of his Irvine-based Tiger Woods Foundation at Aronimink Golf Club near Philadelphia prior to last month’s AT&T National. It was their first meeting since his sex scandal erupted late last year. The Insider is told that Woods was upbeat, expressed his appreciation to board members for standing by the foundation and reaffirmed his support for the Anaheim learning center and for building more centers elsewhere. He did not offer an apology. Woods spoke for a few minutes and was “very engaged” in the rest of the 90-minute session …
OC real estate guru Michael Meyer’s latest strategy: paying cash for low-end, bank-owned homes and renting them out. His goal is to earn 6% a year and realize a 15% annualized gain when he sells the properties in five to seven years. His TwinRock Partners fund is targeting Inland Empire homes priced less than $250,000 …
KOCE-TV’s David Nazar is an Internet and media sensation for a video that shows him “accidentally” knocking over an ice sculpture while reporting from the OC Fair. Viewers want to know, was it staged? Nazar prefers to keep ’em guessing …
Just before officially taking over as chief of Bausch & Lomb’s new Aliso Viejo-based eye surgery business, Robert Grant took an eye-opening trip aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. The former Allergan exec joined mortgage maestro Glenn Stearns, circuit board maker Tim Redfern (Insulectro, Lake Forest) and investor Tom Tucker (Pennhill Properties, Newport Beach) for the two-day cruise. A C-2A cargo plane took them 200 miles from Coronado Island to the deck of the carrier. The OCers were wowed by the Navy crew: “We were very lucky to witness our finest at work,” Stearns said …
This from directorship.com, a website for corporate directors: “California is largely viewed as the most difficult and expensive legal environment among all the states. Although it enacted medical liability reforms in the 1970s, the predatory tactics of today’s trial bar and the snarled nature of civil liability law make California a hostile environment for business.”
