PAGE 3: Kite’s Flight; LA Weekly’s Fate; Trebek’s Nit-Pick

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A couple of members of our recently published LA 500 book of local influentials and a New Yorker with an eye for L.A. deals stood out among a coterie that stands to do awfully well on Gilead’s proposed $11.9 billion acquisition of Santa Monica-based Kite Pharma. The trio starts with Stephen Ruchefsky of Commercial Street Capital just north of Manhattan – a Kite director who was among the largest individual direct shareholders listed for the drug maker at the time the deal was announced last week. The LA 500 members were Arie Belldegrun, founder and chief executive of Kite; and Roy Doumani, also on the Kite board, and the executive director of the Business of Science Center at UCLA. See more on Kite from our Henry Meier in Deals & Dealmakers on page 6. … It was déjà vu all over again – only bigger – for Ruchefsky, an early investor in Cougar Biotechnology, a Century City-based company founded by Alan Auerbach and sold to J&J in 2010 for $1 billion. … A much smaller deal seems to be in the offing for another name of note – LA Weekly. Word on the street has two bidders interested in getting the title from Voice Media Group. … Pick up the September edition of Los Angeles Westways for a match of Hollywood style and California class. It starts with a letter from legendary Jeopardy host and Studio City resident Alex Trebek, whose self-described nit-pick comes over geography and English-language usage. The megapopular magazine from the Automobile Club of Southern California responds with a show of strong journalistic chops while graciously conceding that the game-show star has a point. … Check out this week’s Who’s Who in Real Estate, a special report that starts on page 10, to get caught up on the latest developments around downtown. And you can get a firm idea of how far the city’s center has come by noting the Q&A that our Neil Nisperos did with Tony Morales of Jones Lang LaSalle, who mentions that one of the top floors at the 52-story 515 S. Flower was still being used for storage before his firm represented Boston Consulting Group in a 50,000-square-foot lease a couple of years ago. … There was plenty of fun, foodie-worthy grub, and cool kicks on display at the Aug. 26 grand opening of Community on Mateo Street in the Arts District, where “Angelenos can now buy premium, handcrafted footwear right in their backyard while also giving back to their community.” One of the nonprofits expected to benefit from the $10 from every sale the new shoemaker plans to donate is Street Poets, which helps at-risk youth get on track and provided some live performances for the crowd by participants who wore T-shirts with a best-in-show tagline: “Metaphors Be With You.” … Sullivan Says: Anyone who wants to get ahead of the demographic curve in the consumer marketplace should spend some time looking and listening at the Latino Book & Family Festival, slated for Sept. 10 at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes adjacent to Olvera Street under the auspices of Edward James Olmos’ Latino Literacy Now.

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