Sportswear Maker Finding Right Fit With Public Offer

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Danny Guez is just another 28-year-old trying to make it in L.A.’s rag trade. Luckily, he has a leg up on the competition.


Son of Paul Guez, founder of private label denim manufacturer Azteca Production International and of high-end Antik jeans company Blue Concepts, he has followed in the footsteps of hot jeans manufacturer True Religion by completing a reverse merger into a shell. Investment banking firm Sanders Morris Harris raised $7.8 million for People’s Liberation Inc., an athletic sportswear company with 25 employees. The newly issued stock includes Guez’s 50 percent stake in Justin Timberlake’s new clothing line, William Rast.


“It’s a bit scary but it’s exciting at the same time,” said Guez, of the public markets. He said both brands are doing well at retail stores.



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The bailout continues at Marsh & McLennan’s Los Angeles office, with Mark Mathias jumping ship to join Aon Consulting’s Irvine office as vice president and office leader.


Mathias said it’s no secret that Marsh continues to lose employees in the fallout of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s bid-rigging probe last year. “Marsh was put in a very difficult position by several of its New York based employees,” he said tactfully. “But it would be unfair to take a swipe at a competitor.”



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Allan Rudnick, chief executive at Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC, has some concerns about the economy slowing down and housing prices falling.


Rudnick, who lives in Beverly Hills but bought a house in Bel Air that is being renovated, said housing prices in Southern California are a lot like blue chip stocks.


“I would say prices have been in a long-term uptrend and right now we are absolutely at the upper end of that range, so I would expect a correction,” he said, adding that it could take a 20 percent slide in housing prices to bring the market back into equilibrium.



*Staff reporter Kate Berry can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 228, or at

[email protected]

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