CalAmp has taken big steps back toward profitability after announcing an $8.2 million cash infusion from a legal settlement and an 8 percent cut to its workforce as customers cut back on orders of communications gear. The Oxnard-based company makes dishes for DirecTV and EchoStar, two of the largest satellite television providers in the country. [...]
Maria Vista Estates – a 77-lot development in Nipomo that’s in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings – has moved one step closer to settling a road-fee lawsuit with San Luis Obispo County for $100,000. The county has already signed the proposed settlement, which is waiting for bankruptcy court approval. But one of Maria Vista Estate’s largest [...]
While California will likely see construction decline for the fourth consecutive year in 2009, Santa Barbara contractors may keep humming along. The Nov. 13 Tea Fire, which scorched 1,940 acres and burned 241 homes, has introduced massive, and often high-end, building projects to the county. A total of 168 residences within the city of Santa [...]
California’s increasing unemployment rate is not the news business students want to hear as they get ready to graduate this spring. But the slowdown already is showing up in smaller job fairs and enhanced career planning services offered by schools. Business schools at tri-county universities are using workshops and one-on-one counseling to teach upcoming graduates [...]
Deckers Outdoor Corp. is in talks to acquire smaller footwear-maker Ahnu in a move that could give the Goleta-based company a much-needed boost after it shed more than half its value in the last five months and had its analyst ratings drop. Deckers said it planned to buy the Alameda-based company on Jan. 23, although [...]
Posters that read “Don’t leave before the miracle” hang throughout the walls of Santa Barbara’s Casa Serena. For those who enter the nonprofit’s doors, the miracle is a recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. It has been 50 years since Casa Serena opened its doors to offer a safe haven and support system for recovering [...]
Even if givezooks! didn’t exactly coin the term “social fundraising,” the company is at least looking to revolutionize the concept. A Santa Barbara-based Internet startup, givezooks! is using the power of social networking tools to transform the way nonprofits and other grassroots campaigns fundraise and connect with donors. “Social fundraising, as we call it, is [...]
It’s becoming clearer that the events of September 2008 will go down as some of the worst in Wall Street history. Consider, if you will, recent comments by a couple of people who represent some of the best thinking on this subject. Writing in a note to investors, David Decker, portfolio manager for Janus Contrarian [...]
The tri-county commercial real estate market can expect to see rising vacancies and dwindling sales numbers and asking rates in 2009, according to several recent reports. Radius Group Commercial Real Estate, Hayes Commercial Group and NAI Capital all published market outlooks for the new year indicating that the pendulum is swinging from landlords to tenants. [...]
The 40th anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, widely credited with helping give birth to the environmental movement, would not seem to be a time to pay some new respect to the free enterprise system. After all, the Jan. 29 offshore spill, which polluted beaches in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, led to a [...]
It’s all smiles and sauvignon in Happy Canyon’s vineyards
Towbes Group grabs Goleta with Groupon-like deals at retailers
Social-media IPOs could launch Golden State sustainability fund
Ventura County brokers hold out ’til 2013 for real recovery
Name changes and new faces at SLO and Oxnard law firms
From apartments to industrial spaces, deals close in the region