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By Marlize van Romburgh / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Banking & Finance, Banking Industry, Top Stories, Tri-County Economy / Comments Off on Treasury nets $3.2M loss on TARP in region
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.
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By Stephen Nellis / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Real Estate, South Coast, Top Stories, Tourism / Comments Off on Court launches bids for eight Nesbitt hotels
Montecito hotel magnate Pat Nesbitt could lose as many as half of his Embassy Suites properties under a recently approved bankruptcy reorganization plan.
Nesbitt and his company, Windsor Capital Group, parked a portfolio of eight Embassy Suites hotels in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing more than $100 million in debts, after being unable to work out a deal with his servicer, New York-based Torchlight Investors. Nesbitt’s Embassy Suites properties in Lompoc and San Luis Obispo were not involved in the case.
Court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara indicate the eight hotels in the bankruptcy are now slated to go to the auction block.
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By Henry Dubroff / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Columns, Opinion / Comments Off on New $20M software campus will put SLO at the cutting edge
At precisely 2:25 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, the future of San Luis Obispo county as an emerging hub for technology companies suddenly got a lot brighter.
That’s the moment when Mindbody CEO Rick Stollmeyer and a half-dozen local dignitaries dug the first shovelful of dirt for the software and services company’s new $20 million campus.
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By Marlize van Romburgh / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Columns, Real Estate / Comments Off on Montecito Medical’s $54M buy raises stake for health properties
Montecito Medical Acquisition Co., a Santa Barbara-based real estate investment firm, has made one of its largest purchases to date, paying $54.6 million for the UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Oncology Center in Santa Monica. The firm now has about $170 million in assets, even after divesting some of the properties it purchased with its first fund between 2006 and 2008.
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By Stephen Nellis / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Central Coast, Columns, Small Business, Technology / Comments Off on With merger and TechPitch win, SLO’s startups are on the fast track
In the past couple of weeks, Alex Minicucci has successfully merged his fast-growing mobile marketing company with a publicly traded firm out of Iowa. Meanwhile, an entrepreneurial emergency room doctor from Nipomo came up a with a brilliantly simple solution for holding an iPad one handed that swept the most comprehensive tech pitch night on the Central Coast to date.
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By Stephen Nellis / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Features, Technology, Top Stories / Comments Off on Out of this world: Santa Barbara company produces saucer-shaped UAVs
Flying saucers have landed in Santa Barbara.
Aerobat Aviation, a Santa Barbara firm with ties to Georgia, is planning to take its saucer-shaped unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, on the road in the coming months hoping to raise $5 million from investors.
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By Tom Bronzini / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Features, Top Stories, Tri-County Economy, West Ventura County / Comments Off on On a 40-year roll: P&G paper plants set to mark milestone in Oxnard
Procter & Gamble will celebrate the 40th anniversary of its Family Care Plant in Oxnard this month, a remarkable milestone when viewed against the decline in manufacturing jobs in California and across the nation. The Oxnard plant makes Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue in huge quantities that supply California and parts of the western U.S.
