ILFC AFFAIR: International Lease Finance Corp. Chief Executive Henri Courpron has lost his chairman title and is being docked $1 million in annual salary after the company determined he had had an affair with an employee under his supervision. A new title of executive chairman has been created, which will be filled by Laurette Koellner, a former president of Boeing International and an AIG independent director since 2009.
AFRICAN BUY: Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and joint-venture partner OCP SA have announced that they plan to acquire all the shares of Team Maroc, an engineering and management consultancy firm in Morocco. The deal will be completed through the Pasadena engineering company’s Casablanca-based joint venture, Jacobs Engineering SA. Terms of the deal were not announced.
GAME PLAY: Activision Publishing and Disney Interactive have announced that they will collaborate to produce and distribute a videogame that ties in with Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” movie set for release Nov. 2. The film tells the story of Ralph, an arcade game villain who wants to prove he’s a hero, but his clumsiness wrecks everything he touches. The game will be a traditional arcade-style side-scroller, in which the action moves horizontally across the screen. It will available for Nintendo platforms.
TEST DATA: CytRx, an L.A. cancer drug company, has announced positive preliminary data in tests on its cancer treatment. The Data Safety Monitoring Board recommended continuing a clinical trial with the drug, called tamibarotene, in combination with chemotherapy drugs as a treatment for lung cancer. CytRx expects to release full data from the test in 2013. “We’ve achieved a key milestone in advancing the late-stage clinical development of tamibarotene,” CytRx Chief Executive Steven Kriegsman said in a statement.
GOVERNMENT WORK: Derycz Scientific has announced a contract with the federal government’s General Services Administration. Based in Santa Monica, Derycz manages reprints and electronic rights to articles for the publishers of academic and scientific journals. Under the GSA contract, Derycz will provide full-text retrieval of articles to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development. The contract will be managed by a Derycz subsidiary named Reprints Desk.
MORE HOMES: KB Home has purchased 174 finished home sites from Irvine Co. in Orange County. Price and other terms of the deal were not disclosed. The home lots are in the Village of Portola Springs within the city of Irvine. The company will build two developments on its new lots. Sage development will offer homes with less than 2,000 square feet, while Garden Hill homes will range from 2,681 to 3,425 square feet. The company expects to start preselling homes next month.
NEW COUNCIL: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has announced the formation of a task force of local technology company executives, entrepreneurs and academic leaders to boost the region’s growth industries. The 26-member Council on Innovation and Industry includes representatives from a cross section of technology-oriented businesses and finance firms. Among the members: billionaire Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management; Randy Churchill, director of emerging company services for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and board member of the Los Angeles Venture Association; Scott Painter, chief executive of TrueCar.com; and Zack Zalon, chief executive of Wilshire Media Group.
HEDGE HIRE: Korn/
Ferry International has announced a new executive will head the firm’s hedge fund recruiting practice. Allison Walker joins the Century City-based company after four years at Arden Asset Management in New York, where she was managing director and chief administrative officer. Previously, she worked at recruiter Hedrick & Struggles and investment firm Och-Ziff Capital Management.
MOVIE HIT: An analyst upgraded the stock of DreamWorks Animation based on the box-office results of “Madagascar 3,” the Glendale studio’s latest movie. Benjamin Mogil at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. changed his recommendation to “hold” from “sell” in a note to investors. “‘Madagascar 3’ is performing better than our expectations,” the note states. In three weeks since its release, “Madagascar 3” has sold an estimated $157 million in tickets.
CLASS DENIED: Overhill Farms has announced that a judge has denied class-action status for a lawsuit by former employees. The suit, filed in 2009, alleged the company required employees to put on and remove protective clothing and wash their hands before and after working without paying employees for that time. The suit alleged other violations of labor regulations. The company denied the allegations.
