Daily Business Report-June 19, 2019
Building 178 in Liberty Station
$9 million grant to NTC Foundation
will fund renovation of Liberty Station
building into performing arts center
The NTC Foundation is slated to receive the largest grant in its history to kick-start renovation of the long-empty Building 178 in Liberty Station into a major performing arts center. $9 million in one-time catalyst funds is in the state’s 2019-2020 budget, which was approved last week by the State Assembly and Senate, and will be funded through the California Arts Council. The budget still has to be signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The Arts District includes 26 historic buildings comprising San Diego’s largest arts and culture destination. The NTC Foundation oversees renovation, leasing operations and maintenance of the buildings. The foundation will supplement the state funds for Building 178 with philanthropic support to complete the project.
State Senate President Pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins and State Assemblyman Todd Gloria announced the grant allocation at an event in Balboa Park on June 14.
“This is great news for San Diego’s arts-and-culture community,” said Gloria. “The grant will allow the Foundation to begin planning, design and remediation work to take an old, dilapidated building and turn it into a world-class performing arts center.”
Atkins noted that the state budget includes significant investment in arts and culture, including this and grant allocations to two projects in Balboa Park announced at the same event. “It is an investment in the region’s future, an investment that will benefit residents and visitors alike, and bring even more dollars to the region.”
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UK request pushes Illumina’s timeline
for completion of PacBio acquisition to Q4
GenomeWeb
Illumina has pushed back the expected completion date of its acquisition of Pacific Biosciences, due to an ongoing review by UK regulators regarding competition concerns.
Illumina now expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The San Diego-based firm also said that the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it will refer the proposed acquisition for further review “if the parties are unable to address the CMA’s concerns.”
“Illumina’s proposed takeover of PacBio raises competition concerns in the supply of specialist DNA sequencing systems in the UK,” CMA said in a statement. “The CMA is therefore concerned that Illumina could face insufficient competition after acquiring PacBio and that the deal could result in more expensive or lower quality products and less innovation in the market.”
In a brief notice about its decision, CMA added that it will refer the deal for a Phase 2 investigation, to be carried out by a group of independent CMA panel members, “unless the parties offer acceptable undertakings to address these competition concerns.”
Illumina announced plans to acquire PacBio for approximately $1.2 billion in cash in November 2018. Illumina’s public comments about the deal, including those during its first quarter results filed April 26, had said the firm expected to close the deal mid-2019.
CMA has been investigating the deal since April.
Illumina said it expects Phase 2 of the investigation “to be initiated within the next week.”
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Equinvests Capital purchases Carlsbad
office property for $9 million
San Diego-based Equinvests Capital, an investment, development and management firm, purchased an office property in Carlsbad from Swift Real Estate Services for $8.8 million.
CBRE’s Louay Alsadek, Matt Pourcho, Hunter Rowe, Anthony DeLorenzo and Gary Stache represented the seller.
Located at 2035 Corte del Nogal, the 54,830-square-foot Camino West Corporate Park sits on 4.42 acres of land in Carlsbad. The two-story, multi-tenant property was 72 percent leased at the time of sale and recently underwent a $2.6 million remodel, including new lobbies, common area, corridors, landscaping, lighting, outdoor lounge areas and restrooms. The building also features an on-site deli, as well as showers and lockers.
Three vacant suites are remaining in the building.
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Poway Crossings in Poway sells for $27 million
Poway Crossings, a 109,455-square-foot community shopping center in Poway, has been acquired by Stirling Organization for $27 million. The center was completed in 1979 and renovated throughout the years, most recently in 2015. Poway Crossings is 80 percebt leased to a variety of tenants, including LA Fitness, Dollar Tree and Big 5 Sporting Goods, Massage Envy, Sola Salon Studios, Sushi Lounge, Banfield Pet Hospital and KFC
HFF represented the seller.
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CitiMortgage agrees to pay $7.8 million
in overdue interest on escrow impound accounts
CitiMortgage, Inc. has agreed to pay $7.8 million in overdue interest to more than 94,000 California homeowners under a settlement finalized Tuesday with the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO).
The payments will compensate homeowners for interest that state law requires to be paid on escrow impound accounts for residential mortgage loans. Under the settlement, CitiMortgage (CMI) may take up to six months to issue checks to all eligible homeowners. For questions, CitiMortgage has established a toll-free line at 877-503-9046 (or 888-221-9892 for TTY services).
“This is California consumers’ money and the DBO is pleased CitiMortgage has agreed to abide by the law,” said Commissioner of Business Oversight Manuel P. Alvarez.
The settlement requires the Missouri-based CMI to pay a required 2 percent interest on the escrow impound balances of 94,483 residential mortgage loans the company serviced dating back to July 1, 2014 and all applicable residential loans going forward. CitiMortgage said it has been paying interest on residential escrow impound balances since Jan. 1.
CitiMortgage, a subsidiary of Citigroup, is a prominent residential mortgage loan servicer in California.
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Element Biosciences secures
$15 million in Series A financing
Element Biosciences Inc., a company focused on the development of genetic analysis tools, has secured $15 million in Series A funding led by Foresite Capital and Venrock. Proceeds from the financing will support the development of disruptive technologies designed to significantly improve quality and reduce the cost of genomic applications.
“The capital raised will fuel the company’s R&D to implement innovative changes across each element, from reagents to instrument to data analysis. We are on an aggressive path to introduce a high quality, flexible platform to make genetic analysis more accessible and adaptable to a broad customer base,” said Molly He, co-founder and CEO of Element.
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LPC West and Crow Holdings Capital
acquire 21-acre commercial property
A partnership between LPC West Inc., the West Coast operating company of Lincoln Property Company, and a private equity real estate fund advised by Crow Holdings Capital, has acquired 80,233 square feet of existing office buildings on 21.04 acres of land at 5650 and 5560 Kearny Mesa Road in San Diego from Cubic Corporation for $35 million. The three-building property sits at the southwest corner of State Routes 52 and 163.
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Personnel Announcements
Juanita Brooks honored with ‘Best in Patent’ Award
Juanita Brooks, an intellectual property litigator and principal at Fish & Richardson’s San Diego office, was named “Best in Patent” at the eighth annual Americas Women in Business Law Awards by Euromoney Legal Media Group. Brooks was recognized for her impressive work over the past year for some of the world’s largest companies, including winning a unanimous Federal Circuit affirmance of a JMOL that reversed a high-profile, $200 million jury verdict against client Gilead Sciences Inc.
The firm was also recognized as the “Best National Firm for Work-Life Balance” and the “Best National Firm for Talent Management” in North America. This is the second consecutive year that Fish has won in both of these categories, which are awarded to firms that are “setting a new standard in progressive work practices.”
