Amgen earnings hold steady
Latest newsThousand Oaks-based biotech giant Amgen reported only a slight increase in profits in the fourth quarter, but said one new drug in its pipeline looks promising. Amgen’s net income inched up 1 percent to $931 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $925 million in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the quarter Read More →
Los Padres Bank shores up capital levels
Latest newsAfter months of struggling with capital ratios, Harrington West Financial Group, parent company of Solvang-based Los Padres Bank, has escaped a regulatory action that can precede a seizure and returned to “adequately capitalized,” the bank said Jan. 25. The bank remains under a longer-term cease and desist order to raise capital ratios. Harrington West had Read More →
Former CEOs debate future of the auto industry
Latest newsFormer Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Donald Petersen and auto quality guru Dave Power, founder and former CEO of J.D. Power and Associates, debated the future of the car business at California Lutheran University on Jan. 21. “The disease of, ‘how I am going to make my mark?’ is a devilish thing,” Petersen said. Read More →
County Commerce reports strong growth in 2009
Latest newsOn Jan. 20, Ventura-based County Commerce Bank released its year-end financial statement, which showed substantial growth in 2009. The bank’s net income was roughly $1 million for 2009, up from $901,000 in 2008. Capital increased 8.49 percent to $13.2 million in 2009 from $12.2 in 2008. During the 12-month period ending Dec. 31, 2009, assets Read More →
Breaking news update: Pacific Capital sells tax-refund loan program for $10M
Latest newsSanta Barbara-based Pacific Capital Bancorp will get $10 million for a program that earned the banking firm hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, a sum that will contribute only “a drop in the bucket” toward curing the bank’s capital woes, one analyst said. The stunningly low price makes the possibility of a Read More →
Chinese cyber attack suspected by Santa Barbara tech firm
Latest newsA day after Internet giant Google said it might pull out of China because of massive cyber attacks from that country, the lawyers for a Santa Barbara software firm that recently sued the Chinese government said they had been hit by Trojan viruses from China. On Jan. 5, Cybersitter filed a lawsuit in federal court Read More →
Breaking news: Music festival company countersues
Latest newsTwiin Productions, the firm behind the West Beach Music & Arts Festival in Santa Barbara, has fired back in a legal battle of band bookers taking place on the South Coast. In August, Jackie Kane, another concert organizer, sued Twiin. She alleged that she’d been frozen out of her share of the 2008 festival and Read More →
