BIG BUY: Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. bought Santa Monica’s Summit Entertainment LLC, creator of the hit “Twilight” film franchise, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at more than $412 million. The “Twilight” series has grossed more than $2.5 billion worldwide and a final film will open this year. Lions Gate, which has its main operations in Santa Monica and corporate offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, hopes to have similar success in March with its “Hunger Games” series, which like “Twilight” is based on a young adult book series.
ACQUIRED: LiveOffice, a Torrance provider of cloud-based data archiving, has been acquired by computer security company Symantec Corp. for $115 million. LiveOffice offers off-site storage and e-discovery services for e-mail and messaging, file sharing and other applications to help companies meet regulatory requirements. Symantec, based in Mountain View, said the deal will enhance the services it provides to companies that need to comply with regulatory governance requirements.
PORT EXPANSION: The Port of Long Beach is likely to get a boost in coming years from a proposed Orient Overseas Container Line facility at the port’s Middle Harbor expansion project. The port and the Hong Kong company are working on a 40-year, $4.6 billion lease. Port officials have blamed declining volume on the loss of terminal operator California United Terminals, which moved to Los Angeles in late 2010 in part due to concerns about the impact of the Middle Harbor construction on its operations. That plus light holiday shipments contributed to a 3.2 percent drop in cargo traffic last year.
TRADE TRAFFIC: Exports through the Port of Los Angeles hit an all-time high last year. Through December, 2.11 million loaded cargo containers were shipped abroad from the port, up 15 percent from 2010, which had been the port’s best export year. Imports increased 2.3 percent year-over-year to 4.06 million containers. Overall, the port handled 7.94 million containers, including empty containers, a 1.4 percent rise from a year earlier. Exports at the port have been helped by the continued weakness of the U.S. dollar and the arrival of terminal operator California United Terminals.
DISNEY SITE: Walt Disney Co. has launched DisneyBaby.com, a website for expectant and new parents featuring advice and a collection of products from the Disney Baby brand. The site features its infant apparel, resource center a digital community scrapbook. Disney launched the Disney Baby brand last year, and in November paid $40 million to acquire Babble.com, a parenting site featuring more than 200 mommy bloggers who will now contribute to DisneyBaby.com.
SENTENCING: Operators of a Marina Del Rey firm that provided bookkeeping and other financial services to celebrity fitness instructor Billy Blanks were sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for stealing more than $1.1 million from the developer of the Tae Bo exercise program. Rhenee Sharmell Foster and Demetria Foster Gutierrez, both of Palos Verdes Estates, also were ordered to pay more than $1.1 million in restitution. The pair had access to the accounts of Blank’s BG Star Productions of Sherman Oaks so they could pay Blank’s business and personal bills, but instead transferred funds out of the account to cover personal credit card charges.
SPIN OFF: Image Metrics Inc. is spinning off its FaceWare product line to a new company, Faceware Technologies Inc. The spinoff will enable each of the Santa Monica firms to focus on separate products and services to different markets. Faceware Technologies will focus on marketing its FaceWear software to professional animation companies. Image Metrics will continue to target the consumer animation and facial recognition markets.
OFFICE ACQUISITION: M West Holdings said that it has acquired Cahuenga Plaza, a 73,150-square-foot office building near Toluca Lake. Cahuenga Plaza, 4130 Cahuenga Blvd., is near NBC Universal’s headquarters, several film studios and the Universal Studios Theme Park. The complex is geared toward tenants in film and TV production and postproduction industries, with outdoor balconies, patios and scenic views from many offices.
APPROVED: The California Public Utilities Commission approved three solar energy contracts signed by Southern California Edison, a subsidiary of Rosemead’s Edison International. The 20-year contracts are for purchase of 711 megawatts of solar energy from facilities owned and operated by SunPower Corp. of Richmond. The plants will be in the Central Valley and Mojave Desert, and are part of Edison’s plan to meet state targets for investor-owned utilities to procure 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.
DEBT SALE: HCP Inc. is selling about $450 million in senior unsecured notes in part to pay down more expensive debt. The Long Beach health care real estate investment trust said that the offering was increased in response to investor demand, but did not provide details. Investors get an effective yield of 3.83 percent. The offering is expected to close Jan. 23.
EARNINGS: City National Corp. reported fourth quarter net income of $43.9 million, 11 percent higher than in the same period a year earlier. Adjusted net interest income rose 1 percent to $206 million. … East West Bancorp Inc. reported fourth quarter net income of $64.5 million, double the amount from the same period a year earlier. Adjusted net interest income rose 3 percent to $204 million. … Hanmi Financial Corp. reported fourth quarter net income of $5.5 million, 4 percent higher than in the same period a year earlier. Net interest income fell 6 percent to $24.4 million. … Simulations Plus Inc. reported fiscal first quarter net income of $971,021, 71 percent higher than the same period a year earlier. Net sales for the quarter that ended Nov. 30 rose 9.8 percent to $2.25 million.
