Advanced Photonics Inc., a semiconductor manufacturer of optical receivers, is moving its corporate headquarters from Camarillo to Ann Arbor, Mich., citing a $1.1 million tax credit being offered by the Michigan Economic Development Corp., plus additional property tax abatements.

A company subsidiary, Picometrix, is located in Ann Arbor, and API plans to consolidate its manufacturing operations from Wisconsin and Camarillo to the Ann Arbor location, the company said in an announcement.

Packaging and assembly will still be performed in Camarillo, but the fate of its 70 or so employees in that office is uncertain. The company has 156 employees total.

Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Kurtz lives in Michigan, but had been commuting to the Camarillo headquarters since 2003. He began working in the Michigan office fulltime last summer. Company executives did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The move, to be completed over the next 12 to 14 months, comes just a few months after API completed the acquisition of Picometrix for almost $6.5 million. Announced last March, the merger closed in May, though company filings at the time did not indicate the pending headquarters move.

For the past few years, API has been quietly consolidating its small corner of the optical semiconductor industry, acquiring Texas Optoelectronics Inc. in 2003 for about $2.5 million in stock and debt, and Simi Valley-based Photonics Detectors Inc. for about $1.3 million the following year. API makes customized silicon-based chips and light-emitting diodes used in aerospace, medical and automotive products. Its customer base is in the U.S. and Canada.

The company’s stock has been hovering in the $2 to $3 range for most of last year, giving it a market capitalization of $50 million. Company insiders hold about 30 percent of the shares.

School Contract


Pasadena-based Jacobs Engineering Group. Inc. has received a contract from the Los Angeles Unified School District to manage the construction of the second phase of the district’s massive school building program.

Jacobs’s executives said the contract is for two years, with three additional one-year options. The company would provide engineering, scheduling and estimating services for the district for construction of several new schools. Terms of the contract, announced last week, were not disclosed.

After not building a single major school campus in nearly 30 years, the LAUSD has been on a crash building program since the passage of the $2 billion Proposition BB measure in 1997. Early on, the program was dogged by cost overruns and controversy, epitomized by the scandal that enveloped the Belmont Learning Center near downtown.

But in recent years, the district, under a new board and Superintendent Roy Romer, overhauled its building program. Romer brought in Jim McConnell, a former captain in the U.S. Navy Seebees, and the district dramatically sped up its pace of construction, garnering praise for its efficiency.

To date, 55 schools have opened, with another 20 under construction. The total $19 billion plan calls for an additional 95 schools by 2012.

However, some controversy remains. Some critics have charged that the district has abused the eminent domain process to clear the way for school facilities, while others say the new schools are still too large and are not as integrated into the surrounding neighborhoods as they should be.

Nonetheless, voters last November approved $4 billion in more school facilities bonds.

But on Jan. 11, McConnell announced his resignation, effective in June. That puts the construction program at a crossroads, just as Jacobs assumes its management contract.

Newspaper Ad Boost


U.S. newspaper advertising will rise 4.3 percent this year, more than double 2005’s growth, helped by a jump in political ad spending, according to a new report from market researcher TNS Media Intelligence.

The cheerier forecast can’t come soon enough for the owners of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago-based Tribune Co., which reported that full-run advertising volume at the Times fell 14 percent to $266,000 in the five weeks ending Dec. 25 compared to a year ago, continuing a trend seen the entire year. That drop contributed to a 6 percent decline in revenues for the Tribune, the nation’s second-largest newspaper owner.

Tribune, whose holdings include 26 television stations, 11 urban U.S. dailies, and the Spanish language Hoy paper, said December revenue fell to $539 million from $574 million a year earlier.

Advertising revenue in the Tribune’s publishing division fell 4.5 percent to $333 million, with full-run advertising at the Tribune’s flagship, the Chicago Tribune, down 2.8 percent. The decline included a 5.2 percent overall decrease in retail ad revenue and a 9.6 percent decline in national ad revenue, mainly at the L.A. Times.

The bright spot for the parent company was a 2.5 percent rise in classified ad revenue. In addition, preprint advertising at the Times rose 5.6 percent in the period.

In its 2006 forecast released last week, New York-based TNS Media Intelligence said gains in newspaper advertising this year will still trail Hispanic network television (10.4 percent projected growth), the Internet (9.1 percent) and cable network television (8.4 percent).

Total U.S. advertising spending is expected to increase 5.4 percent in 2006 to $152.3 billion, according to TNS, which estimates that advertising grew 3 percent in 2005.

Imation Acquires Memorex


Memorex International Inc., a dominant brand name in CDs and DVDs, agreed to be acquired last week by rival Imation Corp., an Oakdale, Minn.-based maker of disks and tapes for storing computer data, for $330 million in cash.

Michael Golacinski, president and chief executive of Memorex, said the sale would allow the combined companies to expand into Europe with two well-known brands.

Golacinski, an electronics industry veteran, will head up Imation’s consumer business and maintain Memorex’ headquarters in Cerritos.

The deal already has the approval of both companies’ boards and of Memorex’ two largest shareholders: Hong Kong-based Hanny Holdings and Investor Asia Ltd., a private equity firm, that control 67 percent of Memorex’s shares.

Of course, Memorex will be forever branded in the memories of American consumers for its famous advertising slogan from 1971. At that time, it launched the audiocassette with jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald’s voice breaking a glass under the tag line: “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

Kate Berry, Deborah Crowe, Howard Fine and Hilary Potkewitz