Other news items of interest from the Orange County Business Journal
Shares of Australia-based Billabong International Ltd. rose slightly to a market value of about $270 million last week after company founder Gordon Merchant told a newspaper there that he would consider new buyout offers for the company. Billabong International is the parent of Irvine-based Billabong USA, and sells apparel and accessories under several brands including Element, RVCA and Honolua. Merchant, who owns more than 15% of the company’s shares and holds a seat on the board, told the Australian Financial Review that he would consider offers lower than $4 a share. The price was seen as a deal breaker in a letter sent to the company’s board earlier this year by an attorney for Merchant and director Colette Paull.
Orange County will continue to add jobs at a moderate pace in nearly every industry through the rest of the year, according to a forecast from Chapman University. Economists of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at the school in Orange expect the county to add 24,135 jobs this year for a total of 1,394,463, a 1.8% growth. The rate was revised down from a year-earlier forecast, when the economists had estimated a 2.2% gain for 2012. Orange County has added just 1,400 jobs so far this year, and Chapman’s forecast indicates a pick-up in the second half, a period that typically includes seasonal increases in sectors such as hospitality during the summer and retail. Local job growth is likely to come at a faster clip next year—at 2%—with a gain of more than 28,000 expected by Chapman’s economists.
Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc. said it will lay off 66 workers companywide, including corporate staff and employees of its Freedom Interactive division. No layoffs were expected at the company’s Orange County Register. Freedom has agreed to sell the Register, along with its six other remaining newspapers, on undisclosed terms to Boston-based 2100 Trust LLC in a deal expected to close next month. Freedom had an estimated 1,000 employees in Orange County and about 3,400 companywide before it began selling off assets toward the end of last year.
Aliso Viejo-based gaming technology startup Gaikai Inc. could be sold for more than $500 million, according to a report last week by Fortune. Gaikai offers cloud-based streaming technology to deliver games directly to consumers through its smart televisions via an Internet connection. Gaikai raised $30 million last year for the rollout of its interactive cloud network. It has backing from Menlo Park-based TriplePoint Capital, which funded a server expansion for Facebook and YouTube. Gaikai counts more than 40 game makers as clients.
Burbank-based Walt Disney Co.’s Disneyland Resort theme parks in Anaheim drew 16.14 million visitors in 2011, a 1% increase from a year earlier, according to Themed Entertainment Association, a Burbank-based trade group. The estimate reflected attendance at the Disneyland park and Disney California Adventure, which recently completed a $1 billion upgrade that added new sections called Cars Land and Buena Vista Street, among other changes. Sandusky, Ohio-based Cedar Fair Entertainment Co.’s Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park saw a 1.5% increase, according to the report, to 3.65 million visitors. Neither Disney nor Knott’s disclose attendance figures.
A typographical error led to the misspelling of Troutman Sanders LLP associate Rushika Kumararatne in the Addendum in the June 25 issue.
