Next week’s print edition of the Business Journal highlight’s OC’s Fastest-Growing Public Companies, a list that’s been shrinking of late, with the relocation of $15B-valued healthcare REIT Healthpeak Properties (NYSE: PEAK) to Denver at the start of the month.
Late last week, news of another loss from the local public company list: Urovant Sciences (Nasdaq: UROV) said it is being bought by its largest shareholder, Japan’s Sumitovant Biopharma, in a deal whose equity value totals $584 million.
Analysts expect Urovant, a maker of a new drug that’ll be used to treat bladder issues, will see revenues increase from around $16 million in 2021 to about $148 million in 2022. The company’s stock got a more than 90% boost in value after news of the deal. It plans to keep its operations in Irvine post-sale.
For more on Urovant, see next week’s print edition. And read this week’s OC Leader Board from Jim Doti and his Chapman economic team on the need for OC to step up its efforts at creating an innovation economy that draws more businesses to the area than it loses.
The Business Journal just put the wraps on its 5th Annual OC500 Directory of Influence; subscribers to the print edition of the paper will be getting the book at the end of the month.
As part of the latest edition, we asked entries on the OC500 to list their new hobbies for 2020. Spoiler alert: members really like their Pelotons, the stationary bikes with online classes that have been a godsend for the stuck-at-home crowd.
Peloton really likes OC, too it appears. Brokerage reports indicate the N.Y.-based company with a $32 billion valuation just inked a full-building lease at the new Shea Business Center industrial development along Dyer Road, in Santa Ana.
Other tenants at the new Shea Properties project include Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries and Hoag Memorial Hospital.
John Saunders has his eyes on the future in OC, while also looking at the past in Europe.
The local real estate owner, owner of Newport Beach’s London Coin Galleries, and one of the members of the upcoming OC500, recently got city approval for a 16-acre mixed-use development on land he owns next to John Wayne Airport. The residential component of the project, dubbed Airport Village, is expected to hold more than 400 apartments and was recently listed for sale.
Saunders said he’s has also been using the downtime from 2020 for efforts related to his coin dealer business; he told the Business Journal he recently directed the English translation of four volumes of works related to coins and medals by famed numismatist, Gerard Van Loon. They were first published in Dutch in the early 1700’s.
“The nature of the Van Loon books is iconic,” according to Saunders. “I can think of no other books in the field of Numismatics, or any other discipline or science, where the leading reference books are nearly 300 years old and still in active current use.”
The translated books will be modestly priced “to make these books available to the largest audience possible,” he said.
