Los Angeles Economic, Social, and Demographic Data

[Westsidelife]

Live Nation signs global ticketing business deal

Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 20, 2007

Live Nation has signed a long-term agreement with German company CTS Eventim to exclusively license the Eventim ticketing platform in North America and to have Eventim provide back office ticketing services in the UK and ticketing services across Europe, the company said Thursday.

Live Nation will begin selling tickets under the new agreement January 1, 2009, according to a release. The deal will allow Live Nation to "control customer data, to create enhanced ticket-based concert products and to capitalize on expanded distribution channels and sponsorship opportunities," according to a release.

The Eventum platform offers features like interactive seating maps, mobile distribution, integrated primary and secondary ticketing, alternative access models, print-at-home, and radio frequency identification ticketing, according to a release.

Los Angeles-based Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) owns and operates concert venues across the nation.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

Fatburger expands again

By Portland Business Journal
Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 20, 2007

Fatburger Corp. has opened its sixth restaurant in Western Canada, in Edmonton, Alberta.

Santa Monica-based Fatburger operates 92 restaurants across the U.S. and in Mexico and China. In October, the chain said it planned to open three restaurants in the United Arab Emirates.

Fatburger is one of Portland-based Fog Cutter's four business segments. Fog Cutter (OTCBB: FCCG) also operates subsidiaries in real estate investments; software development and sales; and the manufacture of machines used to produce glass lenses for eyewear.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

Teledyne to buy Judson Technologies

Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 26, 2007

Teledyne Technologies Inc. subsidiary Teledyne Scientific & Imaging LLC has agreed to buy the assets of Judson Technologies LLC, the company said Monday.

Terms of the deal, scheduled to close Feb. 1, were not disclosed.

Montgomeryville, Penn.-based Judson makes infrared detectors and other products for military, space, industrial and scientific applications, according to a release. It had sales of $13.8 million in the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2006. The company will operate under the name Teledyne Judson Technologies after the deal closes.

Thousand Oaks-based Teledyne (NYSE: TDY) provides electronic components, instruments and communication products; systems engineering solutions; aerospace engines and components; and on-site gas and power generation systems.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

CSC gets $113M deal from NASA

Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 27, 2007

Computer Sciences Corp. has received a five-year, $113 million task order from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for supercomputing systems integration services.

CSC will provide the services at the NASA Center for Computational Sciences, the computing facility operated, maintained

and managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center's Computational and Information Sciences & Technology Office.

The NASA Center for Computational Sciences provides scientists and engineers with the supercomputing resources and simulation tools needed to carry out critical NASA missions and to make new scientific discoveries.

The task order was awarded under the General Services Administration Millennia contract.

CSC (NYSE: CSC) is an information technology company based in El Segundo.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

CSC, Sun extend IT agreement

Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 27, 2007

Computer Sciences Corp. has signed an extension on its information technology management services contract with Sun Microsystems Inc.

Financial terms of the five-year extension were not disclosed.

CSC will continue to provide all applications development and support services for Sun's business applications portfolios -- including finance, manufacturing, messaging, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, data warehousing and other general technology software.

CSC will also manage Sun's new Oracle 11i enterprise resource planning system as it moves to the new 11i platform.

CSC (NYSE: CSC) is an information technology company based in El Segundo.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

CSC gets $613M deal for DoD network communications

By San Antonio Business Journal
Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 28, 2007

Computer Sciences Corp. has been awarded a network services contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency potentially worth $613 million.

El Segundo-based Computer Sciences Corp. (NYSE: CSC) won the Defense Information System Network (DISN) Network Management Support Services-Global Recompete Network Engineering contract.

The contract has a base two-year period and three, one-year options.

Contractors on the company's team include San Antonio-based AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), BAE Systems Inc. in Herndon, Va., and CACI and General Dynamics in Arlington, Va.

CSC held the previous round of this contract since 1999. Under the terms of the new agreement, CSC will continue providing design, engineering, operation and management of voice services for the Defense Switched Network, the secure voice services of the Defense Red Switch Network and network management systems.

The Defense Information System Network contract provides for network management infrastructure support for U.S. services, agencies and combatant commanders. It allows for continuous communications for warfighters around the world.

"Timely and assured communications is vital to our armed forces," says James W. Sheaffer, president of Computer Sciences' North American Public Sector business.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

Report: Apple, Fox in online movie rental deal

By Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal
Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 28, 2007

Apple Inc. has signed an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. to offer movies through its iTunes Store, according to reports Friday.

The Financial Times said the deal with Fox and Cupertino-based Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) would let users rent DVDs by downloading digital copies.

The report said Apple will also license its FairPlay copy-protection platform to Fox, and it will be built into the DVDs, letting users transfer the movies to an iPod or computer for playback.

Century City-based 20th Century Fox is part of the News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) conglomerate.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

Gores Group buys Tyco Electronics Power Systems for $100M

By Dallas Business Journal
Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
December 28, 2007

The Gores Group LLC, a leading investment firm based in Los Angeles, has acquired Tyco Electronics Power Systems from Tyco Electronics Ltd. in a $100 million cash deal.

The buy was made through a newly formed company, Lineage Holdings. That entity operates through two entities, including Lineage Power, which is based in Mesquite and employs 1,900. Lineage Power makes power supply and power conversion products for telecom service providers and enterprise companies.

The other entity is Vincotech, which is based in Germany and has 600 employees. Vincotech makes power modules and other technologies used in industrial, automotive and GPS applications. It has manufacturing operations in Hungary and China.

In a statement released Friday, Ryan Wald, managing director of The Gores Group, said he's delighted with the acquisition of Tyco Electronics Power Systems, now Lineage Holdings.

"With its heritage of industry leading power conversion and power module products, blue chip customers and committed employees, we believe that Lineage is well positioned to take advantage of the growth opportunities present in its industry," Wald said. "Gores will provide financial support and leverage its operating expertise to strengthen its leadership position worldwide and create a platform for profitable growth."

All U.S. employees will become members of the new company on the effective date of the close. The assets and employees of the business in Shanghai, India, Germany and certain other European jurisdictions will be transferred following the satisfaction of certain regulatory and other customary closing conditions.

Founded in 1987, The Gores Group LLC's current private equity fund has committed capital of $1.3 billion. Besides Los Angeles, it has offices in Boulder, Colo., and London.

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Source: Los Angeles Business from bizjournals

[Westsidelife]

I will be heavily cutting back on the amount of news and articles I post in this thread. It's becoming redundant for me even. I just wanted to finish out the news for 2007. Now that it's a new year, I won't be posting news as frequently as I did in 2007.

Though once in a while, I will post an article or two in which I deem significant and or interesting.

Happy New Year! May 2008 be an even better year for Los Angeles!

[The Urban Politician]

It's too bad you slowed this one down, WSL. You were kind of on a roll here for a while..

[Westsidelife]

^ There are ways of creating posts other than via cut and paste. That requires very little brainpower. I haven't given up on this thread completely. I just want to focus on articles that offer a broader picture on things. I have some things to post in here, but I just haven't got to it yet. Though thanks for checking up on me. You obviously must care!

[Westsidelife]

Special Report: Who's Who in Banking

Internet: MySpace Acquisition Raised L.A.’s Web Profile

By AMANDA BRONSTAD
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff
February 15, 2008

As the birthplace of the modern tech industry, Silicon Valley has cast a long shadow over L.A.

Finally, the Los Angeles tech market appears ready to take its place in the sun.

Last year, digital media, e-commerce and other Web 2.0 businesses received $248 million in venture funding – easily more than twice as much as 2006, according to a survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

That kind of growth placed Los Angeles third in the nation in Web 2.0 financing, outpacing New England, and trailing only New York and Silicon Valley. In 2006, Los Angeles was a distant fourth, bringing in $111 million.

All these deals reflect heady times in the local tech market, where money is flowing into fledgling startups – everything from social networking sites and Internet TV platforms to search optimization technology, and new media companies relying on entertainment and other content.

And despite all the virtual technology, the deal-making takes real-life flesh and blood to carry out, which means individuals are making it happen in Los Angeles. So just who are they?

This year, the Business Journal’s Who’s Who in Banking and Finance package zeros in on major players in Web 2.0 financing. It’s a list of 22 venture capitalists, deep-pocketed angel investors, seasoned entrepreneurs, and a group of lawyers and other enablers who play crucial roles in connecting new ideas with money.

“An entrepreneurial culture is really starting to take hold here,” said Greg Martin, an active investor and partner at L.A.-based Redpoint Ventures, one of the first backers of MySpace. “Success breeds success, and there’s been a lot of that here among Web 2.0 companies.”

That’s almost an understatement.

Last year, 40 Web 2.0 financing deals took place in Los Angeles, four more than traditional tech powerhouse Boston.

The genesis of Los Angeles’ Web 2.0 renaissance began with high-profile acquisitions dating back to 2003 when Burbank-based search engine Overture sold to Yahoo for $1.6 billion.

The next year, Santa Monica-based Rent.com was acquired by eBay Inc. for $415 million. Then, in 2005, Experian Interactive scooped up Westwood-based PriceGrabber.com for $485 million and News Corp. made headlines buying MySpace for $580 million – a seemingly high price at the time but now a veritable bargain.

A Web 2.0 startup begins with an innovative idea, a committed management team and a lucrative revenue model. Compared to other tech startups, like biotech or computer hardware companies, these Internet companies require little infrastructure, and seed money generally ranges between $3 million to $7 million.

It’s the kind of model that begat downtown’s Oversee.net, a search engine optimization company that started in a college dorm room, which generates $200 million in revenue.

Another example is Santa Monica-based DemandMedia, a high-tech new-media company. Headed by former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt, it’s pumped with $320 million in venture capital and has already made nearly 20 acquisitions.

Randy Churchill, an L.A.-based technology business development director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the numbers are growing because of the dynamics of Web 2.0 financing.

“We’re seeing an increasing number of smaller deals in Los Angeles because it’s much cheaper to start an Internet company than it used to be,” said Churchill, who conducts the accounting firm’s local Moneytree venture capital survey. “It’s really on the consumer side of the Internet that L.A. is building a critical mass.”

Gone are the days, for example, where investors spent well over a billion dollars to set up Internet grocers such as Webvan, which needed warehouses, a fleet of trucks, delivery men and other brick-and-mortar infrastructure.

That’s not to say investing in Web-based infrastructure isn’t happening, especially for the hardware that makes today’s networks and computers faster and more reliable. For example, when including venture funds for Internet infrastructure technology – both hardware and software – Boston surpasses Los Angeles by about $200 million.

In L.A. though, the Web 2.0 startups are focused on the consumer side of the Internet, along with others that are business-to-business focused. Proximity to Hollywood also sets the scene for burgeoning new-media businesses.

“A Web business is fundamentally a media business that requires creativity in content, capturing people’s attention and keeping them entertained,” Martin said. “That’s what Los Angeles is known for.”

The talent pool has always been here, but now Martin is witnessing this Web 2.0 boom lure people into actually leaving their media jobs and taking chances on Internet startups.

Ultimately, investors are looking for entrepreneurs with a track record of building businesses from scratch and enabling them to take off. Enough of them have demonstrated success in Los Angeles that venture capitalists and angel investors, long fixated on Silicon Valley, have begun shifting their gaze south.

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Source: Los Angeles Business Journal

[milquetoast]

Nice re-entry Westy

[milquetoast]

$70 million India trade boost for Southern California ruggedelegantliving.com

Daily News Wire Services
Article Last Updated: 03/28/2008 06:33:15 AM PDT

Southern California's economy will soon get a $70 million economic boost thanks to a delegation of local business and government leaders who recently returned from a trip promoting trade and strengthening economic ties with India.

"The preliminary outcome of this mission was highly successful, with participating companies reporting more than $70 million in projected export sales," said Vance Baugham, president of the Los Angeles-Long Beach chapter of the World Trade Center Association.

"We anticipate an attraction of a direct airline flight to LAX in 2009," said Baugham. "We are also in discussions with a major Indian hotel brand to add a location in Los Angeles County that could bring up to $100 million in Indian investment to the region, with 500 to 600 new jobs," he added.

The WTCA supports development of international trade and business opportunities for local companies and promotes the L.A. region as a destination for foreign investment.

Baugham was among the 25-member delegation, which included representatives from the cities of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach, Los Angeles World Airports, as well as major corporations such as AECOM, Clean Energy, KPMG, Paramount Pictures, Seyfarth Shaw, KPC Group, Oasis, and Cal State Long Beach.

The delegation -- led by Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation Chairman Ray Holdsworth and CEO Bill Allen; WTCA President Vance Baugham and India-born Long

Beach Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal -- met with Indian government and industry leaders on the country's infrastructure needs, such as air and sea ports in New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
The trip also included a series of business matchmaking meetings conducted throughout India. Officials introduced local and regional engineering, technology and transportation-related companies doing business with the Port of Long Beach and Los Angeles to their Indian counterparts.

India's economy, the world's 12th largest, is expected to grow exponentially in the coming decades to meet rising demand in Europe, Asia and the United States.

"That expertise exists in Los Angeles County, which is home to the Port of Long Beach and neighboring Port of Los Angeles, together making up the largest port complex in the Americas and fifth largest in the world," said LAEDC President and CEO Bill Allen.

The LAEDC is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1981. Its mission is to attract, retain, and grow business and jobs in Los Angeles County. Since 1996, the LAEDC has helped retain or attract more than 135,000 jobs, providing $5.6 billion in direct economic impact from salaries and $95 million in annual tax revenue to benefit to local governments and education in L.A. County. Daily News

[VZN]

And meanwhile, our ties with Asia only get stronger. That was a good read.

[milquetoast]

LAUSD talking about speaking more Chinese
To help students compete globally, new classes might be offered
By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 03/29/2008 10:16:18 PM PDT
usnews.com

Acknowledging the growing force of globalization, the Los Angeles Unified School District is gearing up an ambitious program to offer Mandarin Chinese language and culture courses at all of its middle and high schools.
The plan, which will go to the board next month, calls for the courses to be offered at about 200 middle and high schools, and each of the LAUSD's eight local districts also would have at least one dual-immersion program in which students started studying the language in kindergarten.

The move would be one of the largest of its kind in the nation and would put Los Angeles Unified on the cutting edge of language and culture instruction in public schools.

Superintendent David Brewer III touted the plan at a Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce luncheon last week. He called it "embarrassing" in his years as an admiral that the U.S. Navy is the only one in the world whose sailors speak just one language.

"It's arrogance. Every student in China is taking English classes," he said.

LAUSD has been working for the past 18 months with Mandarin in the Schools - a local panel created by a prominent national nonpartisan Chinese-American organization called the Committee of 100 - on how to expand the classes in Los Angeles schools.

Representatives of Los Angeles city government, LAUSD and California State University, Los Angeles, are among members of the panel, which plans to launch a campaign to help recruit teachers and raise community awareness of the program.
School board member Yolie Flores Aguilar is sponsoring a resolution for the program, which proposes requiring at least one high school in each of the eight local districts to offer Chinese language and culture courses in the 2008-09 school year.

About 713 of 700,000 students in the district take Mandarin courses at the 14 schools that now offer the language. By 2009-10, each local district would have at least one high school, one middle school and one elementary school class offering a Mandarin language and culture program.

Starting in 2010, local districts that already had Mandarin classes would increase grade levels involved, and courses would be added at new sites.

"It's important because we - not just here in California and in L.A., but across the nation - are significantly falling behind other countries in terms of our abilities to manage in a global economy," Aguilar said.

"I don't think we have a second to spare. The rapidness of the economy in terms of moving in a global direction is not something we should take lightly, and there's no reason to wait."

The nation's second largest school district already offers instruction in foreign languages - including German, Italian, Japanese and Russian - and in American Sign Language to about 77,000 secondary students.

Only one school offers a dual-language program in Mandarin, while 24 offer such programs in Spanish and eight in Korean.

Harry Haskell, director of world languages and cultures at LAUSD, said it's critical that U.S. schools make Mandarin more available.

"Mandarin is and will continue to be a very critical language," Haskell said. "We're realizing right now that because of globalization, it's vital that we have second-language skills because we have to compete with the rest of the world.

"And we are not."

Stewart Kwoh, vice chairman of the Committee of 100, said the Mandarin in Schools committee will work to recruit teachers from among Mandarin speakers in the greater Los Angeles area, which boasts the largest concentration of Chinese-Americans in the United States.

"There are about 200million Chinese learning English, and less than 50,000 Americans learning Mandarin," said Kwoh, who also is executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

"We felt that it was very important for American youth to be able to learn Mandarin to be able to compete in the global marketplace, to understand a fast-growing country and its culture, and to be able to converse on the world stage with Chinese being one of the most widely used languages of the world."

Kwoh said he thinks there will be a demand for the courses, noting the number of students taking Mandarin doubled in one year when the district brought in four guest teachers from China.

"If the school board adopts this plan, Los Angeles would be a pacesetter in the country in terms of aggressiveness of a plan to broaden Mandarin programs," Kwoh said. "This is a very aggressive plan."

School districts in cities including Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Seattle and Portland, Ore., are already offering Mandarin from kindergarten through grade12.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa long has emphasized the need for students to be proficient in more than one language to remain competitive in a growing world economy.

And he has repeatedly mentioned that his son took a one-month summer course to learn Mandarin.

"In a global work force, knowing a second language like Chinese or Spanish will be critical to our children's success," Villaraigosa said.

"It's encouraging that the LAUSD leadership recognizes this and is making the commitment now to provide our students every opportunity possible."

Kay Kei-ho Pih, assistant professor in the sociology department of California State University, Northridge, said demand for Mandarin courses has surged in recent years.

And he said that while English will remain the primary language in the global economy for the foreseeable future, the ability to read and speak Chinese will become increasingly important.

"We are very ethnocentric in how we view the world - as demonstrated by a lack of knowledge of international affairs," Pih said. "It's a very practical measure, as China is the No.1 trade partner of the U.S.

"It's very important for American kids to learn not just Chinese, but a foreign language."
Daily News

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

this is very important. i wish i knew Chinese.

[VZN]

Yeah. Integrating something this crucial into the LAUSD could drastically alter the direction of the city for the better in the future and will hopefully attract more Chinese investment into our local/state economy.

[Caliguy2005]

L.A has Enormous Potential...Remember that this city was once just a small town/village,but look how quickly it made it's way up to become the 2nd Largest City in the U.S with the 2nd Largest Economy.

[milquetoast]

...and third in the world, or so I've heard. London, I think, is ranked 6th.