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Mindbody breaks ground on $20M campus in SLO tech corridor

By   /  Tuesday, October 29th, 2013  /  Central Coast, Latest news, Real Estate, Technology, Top Stories  /  Comments Off on Mindbody breaks ground on $20M campus in SLO tech corridor

San Luis Obispo is set to get its flagship high-tech campus as software company MindBody CEO Rick Stollmeyer and local officials broke ground Oct. 29 on a $20 million project including a new office building, four-story parking structure and promenade that will link with an existing facility, eventually boosting employment to 1,300 people.

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Heritage buy sets stage to compete in big leagues

By   /  Friday, October 25th, 2013  /  Banking & Finance, Banking Industry, Central Coast, East Ventura County, South Coast, Top Stories, Tri-County Economy, West Ventura County  /  Comments Off on Heritage buy sets stage to compete in big leagues

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.

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Ratings agencies unfazed as county pension costs rise

By   /  Friday, October 25th, 2013  /  Banking & Finance, Central Coast, East Ventura County, South Coast, Top Stories, Tri-County Economy, West Ventura County  /  Comments Off on Ratings agencies unfazed as county pension costs rise

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.

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Montecito investor gets sentencing date as ex-wife seeks bankruptcy

By   /  Friday, October 25th, 2013  /  Banking & Finance, Law, Real Estate, Top Stories  /  Comments Off on Montecito investor gets sentencing date as ex-wife seeks bankruptcy

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.

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Gov. Brown vetoes Amgen-backed anti-biosimilars bill

By   /  Friday, October 18th, 2013  /  Banking & Finance, Central Coast Health Watch, Technology, Top Stories, Tourism, Tri-County Public Companies  /  Comments Off on Gov. Brown vetoes Amgen-backed anti-biosimilars bill

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill supported by Thousand Oaks-based Amgen and other biotechnology companies that would have made it more difficult for pharmacists to dispense so-called biosimilars, the biotech industry’s analogue to generic pharmaceuticals.

Senate Bill 598, approved by both houses of the legislature, looked mostly like a procedural change to state’s pharmacy laws. If it passed, the bill would have allowed pharmacists to fill prescriptions with biosimilars that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deems “interchangeable” with brand-name counterparts.

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Retired Ventura County sheriff sues for supplemental pension

By   /  Friday, October 18th, 2013  /  East Ventura County, Law, Top Stories, Tri-County Economy, West Ventura County  /  5 Comments

Former Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks, whose $283,000 pension is among the largest of any retired government employee in California, is suing the county for a supplemental benefit that would pay him another $75,000 a year.

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RingRevenue dials up new software focus

By   /  Friday, October 18th, 2013  /  Technology, Top Stories  /  Comments Off on RingRevenue dials up new software focus

RingRevenue, the region’s fastest-growing company last year, has rebranded itself with a focus on its marketing software for corporate customers and added an executive from Salesforce.com’s acquisition team to its board of directors.

The Santa Barbara company’s new name will be Invoca. The firm makes a software platform that lets marketers insert unique telephone numbers into campaigns and then filter, track and give credit for incoming calls.

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