L.A.’s Celtic Brexit Brigade
There’s a good deal more than a desire for an outpost in La La Land when it comes to the Republic of Ireland’s plans to open a consulate in the City of Angels. The Irish, it seems, are pushing their economic prospects ahead of the “Brexit” that stands to carry the United Kingdom out of the European Union. It’s a move that could bring some short-term pain and long-term gain for Ireland, making it the lone English-speaking member of the EU – not a bad selling point when it comes to drawing investments from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Nigeria, and other former colonial territories of the British … Some short-term pain is likely unavoidable because the U.K currently is Ireland’s largest trading partner, and that flow stands to be interrupted with Brexit – and could see some severe challenges if the Brits don’t come up with some deal other than a flat withdrawal from EU … 
Irish Eyes on Century City
Ireland has been deft at the geopolitics of Brexit so far, however, and the Los Angeles consulate is just one of a dozen or so new missions it is establishing in an ongoing expansion of diplomatic and commercial links around the world. New offices have gone up or are on the way to cities everywhere from Latin America to the Middle East … Los Angeles is seen as a particularly big opportunity for Ireland, which has been ramping up here for some time with the annual Ireland Week, an effort that this year linked Loyola Marymount University’s new Playa Vista campus to the related IrelandCon, an all-day conference to examine tech, trade and cultural ties to the United States … 
Consul General Robert O’Driscoll – who currently calls San Francisco home base – is overseeing the search for a location for the L.A. consulate. O’Driscoll tells me there’s not been a final decision on a location here, but word on the street makes Century City a favorite for the L.A. consulate.
Other Effects
Ireland already accounts for 185 companies with operations in Southern California, combining for 20,400 local jobs, ranking No. 7 among foreign investors here, just ahead of China, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. 
The decision to establish a consulate here means even more for Los Angeles, according to Jerry Green, chief executive of the Downtown-based Pacific Council on International Policy, a nonprofit that aims to illuminate and promote L.A.’s global links … “This is very good news indeed for Los Angeles,” Green said of the pending Irish arrival. “We have a very large and growing number of consulates here reflecting the status of Los Angeles as a global city.” 
From South Korea to China, Via L.A., Texas
Koreatown-based Hanmi Bank lost out on a deal to buy a bank that primarily serves the Chinese-American community in Texas – but it’s not giving up on the niche … Hanmi last month opened a branch in Houston’s Chinatown, claiming the title of first Korean-American bank to dedicate a branch to the Chinese-American community. The move came four months after shareholders of SWNB Bank, a Chinese-American institution in Houston, declined to approve its sale to Hanmi, which has about $5 billion in assets …
Hanmi’s move in Texas comes as it gets set to close four of its 37 branches, including one in Irvine. It’s also part of a recent churn of activity in the Korean-American segment of SoCal’s banking sector … Bank of Hope, the largest Kor-Am bank in the nation, with about $15 billion in assets, plans to shutter up to 6 of its 63 branches across nine states in what appears to be a final phase of consolidation after the 2016 merger that created it out of BBCN Bancorp and Wilshire Bancorp … Orange County’s original Kor-Am bank—Uniti Financial – recently sold to Walnut Creek-based United Business Bank, which operates in the general market.
OC’s Innovation Station
Aliso Viejo-based technology and life science accelerator OCTANe is in the works on a move of its LaunchPad business unit to the FivePoint Gateway Campus in Irvine. The campus is the portion of Five Point Holding LLC’s Great Park Neighborhoods – which recently made RLCO Real Estate Advisors’ list of best-selling master-planned communities nationwide, by the way – that’s home to chipmaker Broadcom Inc.’s regional operation …
City of Hope National Medical Center also is setting up shop at the Gateway Campus, part of a push to complement the residential aspect of the Great Park development with a center of jobs-producing, innovative commercial enterprises. FivePoint Chief Executive Emile Haddad put a premium on attracting City of Hope’s first major presence outside of L.A. County, and he more recently joined the board of nonprofit OCTANe, which appears to be making serious strides under the leadership of Chief Executive Bill Carpou, who expects to pick up the pace even more with longtime medical device executive Jim Mazzo taking the reins as chairman of the outfit this year.
Mazzo will fit the volunteer position alongside his day job as the Newport Beach-based global president for Carl Zeiss Meditec AG’s Strategic Business Unit for Ophthalmic Devices …
FivePoint recently moved its main offices to its development in Irvine, but look for increasing levels of operations and civic involvement in Los Angeles for the company and its top executive. Haddad currently serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC, while FivePoint is underway on the Newhall Ranch master-planned community–which calls for 21,500 homes and 11 million square feet of commercial development in the Santa Clarita Valley in northern L.A. County–and currently engaged in exclusive talks about a project with Cal Poly-Pomona on the eastern boundary with San Bernardino County.
About Burrous
A sad L.A.-OC connection comes with the death of Chris Burrous, a graduate of Chapman University in Orange who became a popular presence as a reporter and anchor for the morning news program at KTLA 5 in Los Angeles. Burrous died on December 27, shortly after being found unresponsive in a hotel room in Glendale … Speculation over the circumstances have made various media reports, while David B. Moore, an assistant vice president at Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman, offered a different perspective on Burrous… “He was kind and generous with his time when it came to helping others, reflective of Huell Howser in that respect,” Moore wrote in an email to SullivanSaysSoCal. “One of our broadcast journalism faculty members, Pete Weitzner, told me that Chris often spoke in his class and opened doors of opportunity for students and alumni in the industry. Whatever comes out in the news about the circumstances of his untimely death, I think he’ll always have a fan club of those who knew him.”
Walk Back on Times TV Talk?
No telling whether Patrick Soon-Shiong has trimmed his ambitions since a recent announcement that his L.A. Times would start its own TV channel. Difficult to discern if that’s given way to plans for the “L.A. Times Today” show on Charter Communication’s Spectrum News 1 channel … Spokespersons for both the Times and Charter seem to have frozen on this one, offering nothing to bring clarity on the question of whether the apparent joint venture—expected to start next month – takes the place of the plan Soon-Shiong laid out back in October in public remarks … The biomedical-billionaire-turned-media-mogul suggested back then that the Times had a branded 24-hour news channel in the works. The deal with Charter calls for the Times brand and personnel to be the focus of a one-hour nightly show hosted by Lisa McRree, a Spectrum News 1 anchor. No word on whether any non-compete agreement is in place or the Times retains the option to launch its own channel anytime — or whether or how the Times and Charter might split any revenue or profits from the show.
Straight Ahead for NantCell
Some recent clarity about Culver City-based NantCell–one of the several biomedical enterprises in Soon-Shiong’s portfolio–came with word that Celgene Corp. was behind the latest $30 million investment into the outfit. Celgene is a Summit, N.J.-based member of the ranks of Big Pharma, with a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion; it invested $75 million in NantCell in a 2015 round … The latest investment in NantCell gives Celgene a stake of nearly 3% and values the startup at about $4 billion. NantCell is one of several entities held privately by Soon-Shiong, who has personal fortune estimated anywhere from $7 billion to $21.6 billion by various media outlets … Celgene’s investment came a a few days ahead of a deal that has Bristol-Myers-Squibb set to acquire Celgene for $90 billion … Soon-Shiong has a stake in Celgene that goes back to at least 2010, when he sold the New Jersey-based company his Abraxis BioScience for $4.5 billion in cash and stock, according to reports. Forbes last week estimated that the Bristol-Myers-Squibb offer for Celgene added another $200 million or so to the value of Soon-Shiong’s remaining stake in the target company.
OC Expansion for Chan Soon-Shiong Cancer Centers
Anyone else notice that the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Medicine–the name recognizes Soon-Shiong’s wife, Michele Chan–has opened one of its immunotherapy-based cancer clinics in Costa Mesa to go with its home base in El Segundo. The OC location was publicized in a recent quarter-page ad in the L.A. Times.
LACMA’s Trip to the Mall
Give the Los Angeles County Museum of Art credit for opening new channels of distribution for the collections it keeps on behalf of the local population. Hi-brows hold onto your hats–and check out what this steel-and-stone work of art by Woods Davy–titled “Toluca“–looks like on display for shoppers at Westfield Century City.
Trump’s Playbook for UTLA
Who figured that L.A.’s public school teachers would take a page from President Donald Trump’s book? That appears to be in the offing, with members of United Teachers of Los Angeles poised to walk off the job this week and bring a basic public service to a halt unless there’s a breakthrough on negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District … Don’t let anyone fool you: No number of contingency plans or extra staff at recreation centers or libraries or public parks will prevent chaos in all sorts of places if the teachers strike … Don’t let anyone fool you II: The leverage of potential chaos doesn’t mean LAUSD will fold – there’s a chance district boss Austin Beutner has been giving it to the public straight on his claims that the district has no more room to maneuver.
Sullivan Says
Kudos and great expectations for Debora Vrana, one-time journalist, current senior vice president and media relations manager for City National Bank, and newest member of the Los Angeles Parks Foundation, a “nonprofit devoted to enhancing, expanding, preserving and promoting the more than 450 parks in Los Angeles.”