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By Erika Martin / Friday, November 8th, 2013 / Features, Small Business, Top Stories / Comments Off on Grown in Ghana: Santa Barbara startup makes African superfruit supplement
A Santa Barbara startup hopes to bring the rumored superfood qualities of the African baobab fruit to the U.S. market. The company said the product provides a highly-concentrated source of nutrition and has a sweet-yet-tart flavor that blends grapefruit, pear and vanilla, and an oil.
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By Staff Report / Tuesday, November 5th, 2013 / Central Coast, East Ventura County, South Coast, Tourism, Tri-County Economy / Comments Off on 2014 Amgen Tour set to cycle through four of region’s cities
The 2014 Amgen Tour of California, the largest cycling race in the U.S., will visit four cities in the Tri-Counties in May. The eight-day annual event will roll through Cambria, Pismo Beach and Santa Barbara before concluding at the finish line in Thousand Oaks.
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By Staff Report / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Banking & Finance, Banking Industry, Latest news, South Coast / Comments Off on Funari leaves Business First for Bank of Santa Barbara
Longtime Santa Barbara banker Joanne Funari has stepped down from Business First Bank to join the Bank of Santa Barbara as chief operating officer.
Funari previously served as regional director and president of Business First, a division of Heritage Oaks Bancorp based in downtown Santa Barbara.
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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 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 / 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 Editorial Board / Friday, November 1st, 2013 / Editorials, Opinion / Comments Off on Editorial: Airport leader helped South Coast lift off
Faced with a community whose utter contempt for the words “economic development” is legendary, Karen Ramsdell did something surprisingly entrepreneurial.
She cobbled together roughly $170 million in debt capital and government grants and gave the South Coast one of the greatest economic development tools ever invented — a spanking new airport.
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