Dole Food Co. CEO and Chairman David Murdock has completed a buyout of the company, a deal that takes the Westlake Village-based produce giant private and values it at $1.6 billion.
The merger was approved by shareholders on Oct. 31, the company said. Dole shares will cease trading on the New York Stock Exchange at the close of business on Nov. 1.
As the last bank in the region exits the Troubled Asset Relief Program on the five-year anniversary of the federal aid program, the U.S. Treasury has recouped most of its investment in the Tri-Counties, taking a loss of $3.2 million on the $259.6 million it disbursed to area lenders.
By paying off $2.1 million in federal aid it received at the height of the financial crisis, Ojai Community Bank becomes the last of the region’s banks to exit TARP. All told, the U.S. Treasury received $256.4 million on the $259.6 million in aid it disbursed to nine banks in the Tri-Counties.
Westlake Village-based Ryland Group made a roaring comeback in the third quarter, with profits up 415 percent to $53.6 million. The parent company of national homebuilder Ryland Homes said revenue rose 60.7 percent to $576.4 million on higher sales as the housing market continued to rebound.
With its $56.4 million purchase of another Central Coast bank, Heritage Oaks Bancorp lays the foundation to build the region’s next big community banking franchise and emerges as the dominant player in the market.
Paso Robles-based Heritage Oaks said Oct. 21 that it is buying Mission Community Bank, based in San Luis Obispo, in a cash-and-stock deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2014. The combined bank would have $1.5 billion in assets, making it the largest bank based in the Tri-Counties.
Despite dire warnings that future pension costs could cause a fiscal meltdown for tri-county governments, credit ratings for Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo county bonds remain mostly unaffected by looming gaps in their retirement obligation funding.
Standard & Poor’s, a leading rating agency, ranks all three counties near the top of a scale that spans from its highest AAA to C, the lowest rating a bond can have without defaulting. Santa Barbara County carries the agency’s second highest AA-plus designation. Ventura County is assigned a slightly lower AA-rating this year and SLO County is ranked AA-minus.
David Prenatt, the Montecito real estate investor who took in $18 million from more than a dozen people and then used the cash to support what a bankruptcy trustee called “lavish spending habits,” is headed for a sentencing in federal criminal court on Dec. 9.
Prenatt struck a deal with federal prosecutors this summer and pleaded guilty to giving false loan application information to Lompoc-based CoastHills Federal Credit Union. Prenatt’s creditors forced him into an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding in 2009. Earlier this fall, his former wife Maria Prenatt filed for personal bankruptcy claiming $27.1 million in debts.
