NEW YORK — Borders, the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain, said today that it is considering selling all or part of the company, amid worsening conditions in the bookselling business. Company officials said they have hired JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch to explore “strategic alternatives” for the troubled chain but also cautioned that there was no guarantee any kind of sale would occur. To provide an economic buffer, the firm also announced a $42.5-million lending commitment from Pershing Square Capital, a hedge-fund firm that has a major shareholders stake in Borders. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-bordersweb21mar21,1,7255090.story

WASHINGTON — The number of newly laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in nearly two months. It was another sign that the weak economy is having an adverse impact on the labor market. The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for jobless benefits totaled 378,000 last week. That was an increase of 22,000 from the previous week. It was a far bigger increase than had been expected. The four-week average for new claims rose to 365,250, which was the highest level since a flood of claims caused by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobless21mar21,1,7129640.story

The Walt Disney Co. is looking to buy a part ownership stake of the Disney Store chain in North America. The Burbank-based entertainment conglomerate is in discussions with The Children’s Place Retail Stores, Inc., owner and operator of 331 Disney Stores. The retail chain would be an important extension of the Disney brand and could add value in the promotion and monetization of its franchise films, the company said. Disney sold the Disney Stores chain to The Children’s Place in 2004.

The Los Angeles City Council voted down a review of the massive Las Lomas residential project proposed for north Los Angeles County. The council voted 10 to 5 to instruct the Planning Department to stop processing the application submitted in 2002 by the Las Lomas Land Co., the Los Angeles Times reported. “This project would have put 15,000 cars a day in an already heavily impacted area,” Councilman Greig Smith was quoted by the Times. “The people of L.A. said we can’t take that anymore. We’re tired of it. We don’t have to say yes to make a developer rich.” The Las Lomas project proposal included more than 5,000 homes in the V-shaped area at the intersection of the Golden State (5) and 14 freeways.

The City of Palmdale has announced a reduction in force of 11 permanent employees. Cuts have also been made to six positions in planning, engineering and building and safety that were already vacant, City Manager Steve Williams stated. “This was an extremely tough decision that the City worked diligently to avoid, first by enacting a hiring freeze three months ago and then by stopping or delaying several capital projects for the last half of this fiscal year,” Williams stated. The Planning Department lost a senior code enforcement officer, a planning aide and a code enforcement officer position. Building and Safety lost three building inspector aides and a permit technician. Public Works lost an inspector, secretary, senior civil engineer and an assistant city engineer. Williams blamed the cuts on declining revenues, with an expected drop of 48 percent in engineering alone for this fiscal year. The city hopes to save $2.3 million per year as a result of the downsizing. Slumps in housing and financial markets may result in a drop in development revenues to $4.1 million for the 2008-09 fiscal year. Compare this to the 2006-07 fiscal year in which revenues were $11.9 million. For the 2007-08 fiscal year, revenues are expected to be $7 million, according to Williams. Employees who have been laid off will receive severance packages as well as health care premium payments for a period of time and outplacement services through a professional firm, according to Human Resources Director Bill McLeod. City officials say they do not know whether more staff cuts will be made, but the outlook is bleak. The City does not know yet how it will be affected further by the State of California’s projected $16 billion budget crunch. “Our fiscal year 07-08 development-related revenue estimates are already down $400,000 more than expected and our 08-09 development revenues are projected to decrease $2.9 million as compared to 07-08,” Williams stated. “There are several other economic factors coming up that will impact the City, including a current and projected decline in sales tax revenue and the cessation of ‘will serve’ letters by L.A. County Waterworks for new development.” Additionally, the City of Palmdale faces the “borrowing” of gas tax revenue by the State of California for five months totaling $1.1 million, a potential decrease in property tax revenue due to expected valuation appeals next fiscal year and an increase in its Sheriff’s contract cost of $1.2 million for next fiscal year due to the rise in cost-of-living and growth expenses, Williams elaborated. “Add to that the fact that the Consumer Confidence Index [recently] dropped to its lowest level since 1992, housing starts on a national level remained near a 16-year low as of January 2008 and the manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexes are showing contractions in new orders, employment, inventories and backlog of orders,” Williams stated.

Whatever Happened to ‘Buy American?’ The Pentagon recently awarded the French company, EADS, a $40 billion contract to build the next generation of air tankers for the U.S. Air Force. The United Chamber of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley believes this is a wrong decision for America. The current discussions between Congressional leaders and the White House over an economic stimulus package to boost our sagging economy is evidence that right now nothing is more important than a coordinated economic policy that protects U.S. jobs. The Pentagon could have stepped in and helped our country take a giant step forward by selecting the American company Boeing over its French competitor, EADS, for this contract. During the last century, Boeing built 2,000 air-refueling tankers and established its lasting reputation as an aviation leader in military hardware. That line of tankers has served our nation well. As they did during World War II, Americans were ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work on a superior tanker that could have proudly been “Made in America.” But by selecting the French company, EADS, the Pentagon has chosen to give away 44,000 jobs to European countries and subsidize their aerospace industry. Let me be clear the economic consequences of awarding this contract to EADS will be felt in the San Fernando Valley. Our region is giving up approximately $4 million annually in local investment and about 100 jobs to the French. Urge your Congressional Representative to ask the Pentagon to reconsider their decision. Let’s hope they will have the resolve to ask the tough questions about why our government is outsourcing this very important part of our economy and national security to a foreign company. Debi Schultze President & CEO United Chambers of the Valley Sherman Oaks, CA

Hospital closures. Nurse shortages. Masses of uninsured. At present, much of the conversation about health care is likely to be dominated by these challenges. Los Angeles County particularly has been under siege, most notably due to the closing of hospitals. But the March 25 opening of Kaiser Panorama City Medical Center’s new facility is a welcome offset to the often bleak picture that is painted of the regional health care market. “This is really, to my knowledge, the first substantial increase in emergency room capacity in the San Fernando Valley in recent memory,” said Kaiser Panorama’s Executive Director Dennis Benton. “A number of hospitals have closed. Several years ago, Granada Hills Hospital, which is near here, closed. The old Valley hospital closed, so the capacity of the area in terms of both inpatient beds and, even more importantly, emergency room capacity decreased.” This doesn’t mean that Kaiser has bid adieu to the old building, though. The first three floors of the old facility will be used for outpatient services, with a concourse attaching it the new building, according to spokeswoman Laura Gallardo. Located just south of its predecessor, construction on the new building began in 2003. The new building is substantially larger, allowing it to absorb some of the impact of area hospital closures. The new facility will also have advanced technology, increased seismic safety and more private rooms and parking. Benton discussed the facility’s other attributes as well as how his background uniquely equips him to oversee it. Question: Describe the experience of overseeing a completely new hospital facility. Answer: Well, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Relatively few hospitals are being built across the country. It’s certainly the first time I’ve done it and almost certainly will be the last. It’s been exhilarating; it’s been a tremendous amount of work. The logistics of the construction and then the preparation for licensure and the preparations for the move-in have all been very time consuming, very intensive, but at the same time very exciting. Q: When did you take on this role? A: I’ve been executive director here since November. I’ve been with KP for a little over five years. Q: Describe the process of being named executive director. A: The first four years I was with KP, I was the business strategy and finance leader for the Valley service area. I was actually based here at Panorama City. I was very familiar with Pan City. Then, during most of 2007, I changed jobs, and I was assistant administrator of support services at Woodland Hills Medical Center. During a three month period in early ’06, the director of hospital operations for this [Panorama City] facility was on medical leave and I replaced him as acting DHO, which is the title that’s now executive director, so I had some experience acting as administrator of the hospital. I also was very familiar with the hospital. I’d been part of the transition team for the new hospital since day one, so it just seemed like a natural fit. Q: Name the advantages and disadvantages of overseeing a new hospital. A: We’re vacating about 260,000 square feet in the existing building and moving into 400,000 square feet, so everything is bigger. The operating rooms are bigger to accommodate new technology. The radiation suites are bigger to accommodate new technology. Patient rooms are bigger, so that we can allow families to stay overnight, if need be. The waiting rooms are bigger. Now the challenge we’re going from a very tight environment and a circular environment and a vertical environment to more of a horizontal, rectangular orientation in the new building. Shape may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference, especially to the nurses and all of the support personnel who deliver supplies and food and things like that. They have to learn new ways to do their jobs. There’s been a lot of training to orient people to the new hospital. How do you respond to a Code Blue? Infant abduction is another one. We’ve actually got a little doll, and if somebody tries to escape with this doll which is marked with a tag it sets off the alarms. We’ve also done several mock moves. How do we get the patients safely from the current building to the right bed in the new building? There are staff and physicians stationed all along the transportation route so that if there is any kind of event along the way, we’ll be able to respond immediately. Q: After the opening, then what? A: Exactly a month after opening, we’re going to have our grand opening ceremony April 25th and 26th. The 26th will be open to the general public. The hospital will be in operation by that point, so we’re not talking about tours through the facility, but the roof of the parking structure next to the hospital will have big tents set up and, for the public, we’ll have some food and health displays. Shortly after that, sometime in May, we’ll be increasing the acuity level of our neonatal intensive care unit. We’ll have the capability to take smaller, sicker infants than we do now. After that, over the summer in July, we finish our KP Health Connect, which is our electronic medical records system as well as our overall information system. A doctor anywhere within KP will have access to the complete medical record of any Kaiser Permanente member anywhere in the country; so, if you were to injure yourself in San Diego and have an X-ray, and you lived here and came back here the next day and saw your primary care physician, he could look and see that X-ray on his screen in his office. Q: Discuss the vision of the new hospital. Who had input? A: At least four years ago, we started a hospital transition activation team, and the work of this team was to figure out how the workflow is going to be accomplished in the new hospital. That team consisted of nurses, both management and labor, support services staff, information technology staff, administrators, physicians, you name it, so it was very much a team effort.

They could see the meltdown coming. Freelance financial watchdogs who examined the paperwork on sub-prime home loans being sold to Wall Street had an inside view of the boom in easy-money lending this decade. The reviewers say they raised plenty of red flags about flaws so serious that mortgages should have been rejected outright — such as borrowers’ incomes that seemed inflated or documents that looked fake — but the problems were glossed over, ignored or stricken from reports. The loan reviewers’ role was just one of several safeguards — including home appraisals, lending standards and ratings on mortgage-backed bonds — that were built into the country’s complex mortgage-financing system. But in the chain of brokers, lenders and investment banks that transformed mortgages into securities sold worldwide, no one seemed to care about loans that looked bad from the start. Yet profit abounded — until defaults spawned hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on mortgage-backed securities. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-subprime17mar17,1,1725852.story

Bally Total Fitness in Chatsworth sits on two properties on DeSoto Avenue and the portion of the health club that is shared with Beginyan, Inc. ceramic tile showroom was sold. Eli Anishban, principal of Precision Properties LLC, represented an unnamed private investor in the $3.75 million sale of the 16,000 -square-foot parcel at 9119 De Soto Ave., Chatsworth. The buyer, Rosswood Villa Apartments LLC, was represented by Linda Kaye of RE/MAX Commercial, Woodland Hills. The Bally’s portion of the 40,000-square-foot property is 8,000 square feet of sales offices, plus a much-needed 40 parking spaces. The L-shaped property has an easement allowing movement between the units. The deal was begun late last year. Anishban described the transaction as “smooth.” He represented the seller when they purchased the property about three years ago. Additionally, Precision has recently handled transactions of another approximately 55,000 square feet of industrial building space in the Valley. This includes representing Eddies Perfume Inc. in its relocation from downtown Los Angeles after they acquired an approximately 15,000-square-foot industrial condominium at 19855 Nordhoff St. in the Northridge Business Center. Anishban also helped American Professional Ambulance in its acquisition of a 7,200-square-foot industrial building on 30,000 square feet of land, at 16945 Sherman Way, Van Nuys. The purchase price was $2.3 million. Seller Community Charter School was represented by Ed Palmer of Grubb & Ellis. Megawine, Inc. was represented by Precision in its five-year lease of an 11,990-square-foot portion of a larger concrete tilt-up industrial facility at 14718 Raymer St., Van Nuys. Yair Haimoff of NAI Capital represented the landlord. Anishban also helped Robert Allen Family Trust in its acquisition of a 12,589-square-foot parcel of land, zoned M-2, at 7259 Fulton Ave., North Hollywood, for $880,000. The buyer will use the property for storage purposes associated with their business. The seller was the Seropian Family. Manufacturer’s New HQ in Valencia Galaxy Die & Engineering acquired a building located on over an acre of land in the Valencia Industrial Center, a 1,117-acre business park. The 28,913 -square-foot building was purchased for $3.4 million. The firm plans a second quarter occupancy and expects to employ approximately 50 people at the site. The company’s new Valencia headquarters is a concrete tilt-up structure featuring over 9,000 square feet of office space, 18-feet minimum clear height, three ground-level doors and on-site parking for 56 cars. Joel Hutak and Kevin Cooper, of Delphi Business Properties, Inc., represented Galaxy Die & Engineering. Kevin Tamura and Mike Corbin of Daum Commercial Real Estate Services represented TENIR LLC, the seller. Privately-held Galaxy is a leading manufacturer of aircraft components, including bushings and bearings. In addition to manufacturing Galaxy produces computer terminal rod end bearings, sleeve bearings, spherical bearings, pillow block bearings, needle bearings, and hanger bearings. AMCAL Expands Agoura Hills-based AMCAL Multi-Housing, Inc., one of California’s builders of workforce and low-income housing, opened a new satellite office in Orange County. Located in Irvine, AMCAL’s new office will be responsible for the firm’s development activities in Orange and San Diego counties. Mario Turner, director of development, has been selected to manage all Irvine office activities. AMCAL’s Fresno office is also experiencing growth with the addition of two new staff members, Craig R. Smith and Janet Rodriguez. Since 2003, AMCAL has been awarded over $231 million in low-income housing tax credits for funding on 1,243 units. AMCAL currently has several family affordable and senior affordable apartment developments currently under construction including an 81-unit community in Palmdale. NAI Brokers Network The NAI Capital Investment Network was launched at the start of the year to connect NAI Capital’s top brokers from their regional offices with clients requiring specialized investment services. Members in the NAI Capital Investment Network have collectively closed $6 billion in investment real estate transactions. Lee Black, executive vice president with NAI Capital’s Encino office and Deborah Luedy CPM, senior vice president with the firm’s Pasadena office have been invited to join the network dubbed GET IN. Black recently represented LBA Realty, Inc. in the sale/leaseback investment purchase of a 261,000-square-foot office building (the Verizon Building) located on 22 acres of land at 112 S. Lakeview Canyon Road in Thousand Oaks, and a 108,000-square-foot industrial building located on 15 acres in Everett, Washington. Luedy along with GET IN broker, Scott Martin SIOR of NAI Capital’s Pasadena office recently represented Virtu Commercial, LLC in the purchase of a 140,000-square-foot office building located in Indianapolis, IN from GPI Retail Properties II LP in a transaction valued at $16.5 million. Senior Reporter James Hames can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or at [email protected].

The navigation systems developed at the Northrop Grumman Corp. facility in Woodland Hills can be found in some interesting and hostile places. They are used aboard jet fighters, submarines, and into the far reaches of space. “So far in outer space, we are on Mars,” said James Myers, the sector vice president and general manager for the Navigation Systems division of Northrop Grumman. Spread among six main buildings on a 50-acre campus, the division conducts research and development for its military and commercial customers along with low-volume custom manufacturing. High-volume manufacturing takes place in Salt Lake City and at subsidiaries in Germany and Italy. Myers was appointed to his present position in August and guides the navigation systems division at a time of transition from mechanical gyro systems to smaller, lighter, more energy- efficient fiber optic gyroscopes. Concerns that global positioning systems would replace these inertial systems based on movement never materialized. Combining the gyroscopic data with that coming from a GPS gives more accuracy and precision on position, velocity and attitude, Myers said. “We can offer to the government customer a precision solution they cannot get with any other solution,” Myers said. Northrop employs 1,600 employees in the San Fernando Valley, with another 1,900 in the Antelope Valley. Q: What kind of challenges are there in making the transition from the mechanical gyroscopes to the fiber optic gyroscopes? A: It really hasn’t been difficult for us whether it be with a customer or from a production point of view. If you look at the way Salt Lake City is organized we have cellular manufacturing. We have product roadmaps. As we transition from one product to another we are maximizing commonalities that exist between the products. It hasn’t introduced difficulties. You do of course want to avoid customer confusion. Some of it is educating the customer on what we have for them today and where we are heading and get them ready for that. Q: When developing new products, are you meeting specific customer needs or trying to get ahead of the curve of what will be needed down the road? A: It is a little bit of both. You want to have technology contracts because you want to have some of this cutting edge work. We fund some of it ourselves but [sometimes we] let the customer fund because that shows the customer is serious about it. The commercial customers are very vocal about what they want and when they need it. There is a small amount of our investment that I view in the terminology of ‘N plus two.’ It’s not current generation, which would be N, and it’s not next generation, which you can see out there in three to five years; you just can’t see it, you don’t know if it will turn into anything. We spend a little bit of our discretionary money on that N plus 2 but it’s small. Q: Like other aerospace companies, Northrop faces losing employees through retirements. What is being done to address that? A: It’s an industry-wide challenge for sure. We don’t see attrition rates, departures, retirements at a rate that is above the industry average. We are lower than the industry here. We are doing better but we are still faced with that challenge in broad terms. It’s much more fun to come to work when you are growing. One piece of it is doing good business and being on a growth trajectory. Another piece is showing that you care. And that is through some of the investments by [Electronic Systems] and the leadership forum that I and a lot of the management have been involved with. Mentoring is something you can leverage with a workforce that has 25 years experience or more. We have many, many people at that experience level. Their ability to educate and bring along folks who have 5, 10, zero years experience, that is something we have to take advantage of. We are working that very hard this year. As far as long-term knowledge management, that is a sector-wide or corporate wide initiative. Q: What steps are you taking to get students interested in math, science and engineering? A: They are the future. The company has a number of areas they are involved in. We have some focus schools in the area. Other parts of Northrop have focus schools they spend time with. As far as attracting people to join the company we have summer interns, we have co-ops. I’ve put a lot of emphasis on those two programs. They exist but we are putting more energy into them than we had because they are critical. We want those people to leave their experience saying great things so they go back and tell their friends how great it was to be here and we get a multiplier effect on that. Q: What is the division between the government work and commercial work? A: If you take international and commercial and put them together it’s maybe 40 percent of our work, and the government is the rest. We are pretty even. The reason I put them together is international business is more commercial than anything else even though sometimes you are selling to a government customer. Those are commercial type contracts. Q: Is there an up and down in terms of the amount of work from both the government and commercial sectors? A: Quarter to quarter you see some motion. The work is pretty stable. There is this interest in more precision. There is an interest in what’s called geo-location; knowing where you are and knowing where another person or object is. There are these new applications that are coming along. We find ourselves stable and growing. We don’t see year-over-year large declines and gains. We are looking to grow very gradually. Q: In terms of the manufacturing, are the entire gyroscope systems built here? A: In Salt Lake City, when we are done [the completed system] is what you will see. Now, we buy the housing and chassis from somebody. We don’t make that. There are pieces that we outsource and there are pieces we do ourselves. Salt Lake City produces many of the items that go into the box, they are integrating the box and they are testing the box. They do a whole spectrum of activity. We also do it here; it’s just not at same volume. Q: Those are high tech manufacturing positions? A: I talk about the precision in what these devices provide. There is also an incredible amount of precision in building them. An analogy for you is that the German subsidiary is located in a part of Germany that is historically known for watch making because you know how precise German watches are, how good they are, how technically accurate they are. The precision that goes into these instruments is significant. They are very high tech. People don’t realize when they see this box but they are very high tech. SNAPSHOT: James M. Myers Title: Vice President and General Manager, Northrop Grumman’s Navigation Systems Division Education: Bachelors in mechanical engineering and a Masters in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Stanford University; MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA. Career Turning Point: Joining Northrop Grumman in 1997 Personal: Married, 3 children Most Admired Person: My father