UNDER FIRE: A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied the city of Irwindale’s request for a temporary restraining order against Huy Fong Foods, maker of the popular “Rooster” brand of Sriracha hot sauce. The city filed suit last week after complaints by some residents that odors resulting from chili processing at the company’s new plant irritated their eyes and throats. The judge scheduled a hearing on the case for Nov. 22.
RESIGNED: A falsified resume has led to the resignation of Vic Alston as chief executive of Calabasas computer network equipment manufacturer Ixia, the company announced last week. Alston joined Ixia in 2004 and was named chief executive in May 2012. An investigation by the Ixia board’s audit committee found he misstated his academic credentials, age and early employment history. The board has appointed founder and former Chief Executive Errol Ginsberg as acting CEO to replace Alston.
SOLD: Billionaire entrepreneur Al Mann has sold his Sylmar battery technology company, Quallion, for $30 million to EnerSys, an industrial battery maker in Reading, Pa. Quallion, which Mann launched in 1998 and has 180 employees, makes lithium ion cells and batteries for applications that include medical devices, defense, aviation and space. EnerSys is expected to keep Quallion in Sylmar.
LATINO AUDIENCE: Cable network Fusion, a joint venture between Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and Spanish-language media company Univision Communications Inc., launched last week in about 20 million homes, with the goal of attracting 18- to 34-year-old Latino viewers. The English-language channel said it will blend hard news, satire and pop culture.
NEW HOME: DC Comics plans to move its publishing division from New York to Warner Bros. in Burbank in 2015. The move will consolidate the West Coast operations of DC Entertainment to deal with the development and production of feature films, TV programs, video games and consumer products featuring its stable of superheroes, including Batman and Superman. Publishing division employees are being given the opportunity to move.
LAYOFFS: Amgen Inc. said that 100 employees had been notified earlier that their jobs were being eliminated due to the company’s restructuring or outsourcing efforts. A spokeswoman for the Thousand Oaks biotech giant said that most of the positions were in operations and in research and development, but did not specify if all the jobs were local.
NEW DOMAIN: Demand Media Inc. has received approval to be the registrar for a new set of top-level domain names – the dot-com or dot-org that comes at the end of a Web address. The Santa Monica company’s domain registry business has been approved as a registrar for the dot-dance and dot-democrat top-level domains. It has also applied to register dot-actor, dot-army and dot-ninja, among others.
TABLET LAUNCH: Walt Disney Co. is embracing a tablet-first debut for its new children’s TV series “Sheriff Callie’s Wild West,” which will start Nov. 24. The first nine episodes will be available on tablets before making a more traditional TV launch on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Disney cited the increasing use of tablet computers by children, noting that more than half of households with children own a tablet. The Watch Disney Junior app has been downloaded about 5 million times since June, generating 650 million video views in the process, the company said.
POWDER: Nutritional supplement maker Natrol Inc. has been awarded $3.3 million by a federal court jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in a case that stemmed from a Food and Drug Administration product recall of protein powder in 2011. The Chatsworth company was awarded the damages after it sued Nature’s Products Inc., a Sunrise, Fla., company that supplied ingredients to powder sold as free of gluten and wheat. The FDA ordered a recall of 12 varieties of the powder after it was found to contain wheat, which can cause allergic reactions.
FASTER: Internet speeds are about to double for Time Warner Cable’s premium customers in Los Angeles. The company is increasing its Web service from 50 megabits per second to 100 megabits per second for its “ultimate” service customers in the L.A. market without increasing prices.
EARNINGS: City National Corp. reported third quarter net income of $63.6 million, up 6 percent from the same period a year earlier. Revenue fell 4 percent to $303 million. … Occidental Petroleum Corp. reported net income of $1.58 billion, 15 percent higher. Revenue rose 8 percent to $6.45 billion. … Herbalife Ltd. reported net income of $142 million, 35 percent higher. Revenue rose 28 percent to $1.21 billion. … DineEquity Inc. reported net income of $18.4 million, 69 percent lower. Revenue fell 25 percent to $161 million. … Avery Dennison Corp. reported net income of $37 million, 35 percent lower. Revenue rose 3 percent to $1.5 billion. … DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. reported net income of $10.1 million, 59 percent lower. Revenue fell 17 percent to $154 million.
