Year-end perspectives on the economy
How amazing is it to wake up morning after morning to headlines telling us that what was unthinkable yesterday has happened today. To punctuate a remarkable four-month period in the history of the markets, the Federal Reserve set a target for short-term interest rates at as close to zero as you can get. A $50 Read More →
Santa Barbara investors target multifamily units on clearance
Santa Barbara-based M3 Multifamily is seizing the bargain real estate opportunities caused by the market’s collapse. M3’s principals – John Mosby, Jon Martin and Mason Farrell – have been purchasing apartment properties from sellers in financial distress. Because would-be apartment buyers have been sidelined by rising capital rates, the principals expect rents and occupancy rates Read More →
Lessons to keep your business alive through 2009
When the current period of recession ends, probably sometime next year, there will be two kinds of companies left. Those who survived and those who didn’t. Having weathered a terrible recession in the publishing industry in 2001 and a total washout of the real estate market in my home state of Colorado a couple of Read More →
That
Just in time for the holidays, the cute little gingerbread-style house across from the Santa Barbara News-Press building on Anacapa Street is going to be torn apart. Maybe that’s a little more Hansel and Gretel than it is holiday cheer, but you get my drift. The small Victorian-era cottage, listed as “Myers Carpenter Gothic Cottage” Read More →
Mentor fetches $1B but J&J walks away with bargain
There is a saying on Wall Street that industries consolidate at the top of a market and at the bottom. Consider, if you will, the case of Johnson & Johnson, which is buying Santa Barbara-based Mentor Corp. for $31 per share — or slightly more than $1 billion total. That’s basically a 100 percent premium Read More →
Dolan takes a leap into transcription game
Bob Dolan, the co-founding chief executive officer of CallWave, is back. He’s the co-founding CEO of a new Santa Barbara company called Cogi. Pronounced koh-gee and established in 2007, Cogi provides an online service to record telephone conversations and select, transcribe and share the most cogent parts. Now several CEOs removed from Dolan, Callwave shifted Read More →
Ventura Investment Co. celebrates 50 years at its Camarillo HQ
Camarillo-based real estate development and brokerage firm Ventura Investment Co. celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. “In the past 50 years, we’ve shifted focus from new development to purchasing and renovating,” said Barton Stern, president of Ventura Investment Co. “However, we do continue to focus on multi-family and office properties.” Stern’s father, Robert, founded the Read More →
