Week In Review

Monday, Dec. 1

Jack in the Box, the San Diego fast-food purveyor, said it is moving from the New York Stock Exchange to Nasdaq effective Dec. 15, and changing its ticker symbol from JBX to JACK. The company said it wanted to belong to “an innovative force in the financial markets” and take advantage of “unique marketing venues Nasdaq offers.”

, Mike Allen

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Cash To Carry On:
Overland Storage, a San Diego provider of data storage systems, said it closed an accounts receivable transaction of up to $9 million with Marquette Commercial Finance, giving the company the cash it was seeking for months. Overland, which reported a net loss of $24.6 million for the 2008 fiscal year that ended June 30, cut 53 employees in August as it attempted to survive a protracted downturn. The company had been seeking $10 million in financing to maintain operations.

, Mike Allen

Tuesday, Dec. 2

Expansion Plans:
The San Diego Convention Center Corp. entered into a memorandum of understanding with the San Diego Unified Port District and Fifth Avenue Landing, a private entity controlled by Ray Carpenter and Art Engel, to negotiate possible expansion of the center.

Fifth Avenue Landing owns a lease on the site behind the existing center and had planned to build a 250-room hotel there, but has been unable to find financing. The lease expires in 2024.

According to the port district, the MOU will allow the Convention Center to assess the feasibility for expanding the center, developing the hotel and purchasing the leasehold held by Fifth Avenue Landing.

Convention Center management and its board have been advocating for a second expansion for several years in order to compete for larger conventions and capture more hotel tax dollars generated by visiting conventioneers.

If built, the expansion would create 6,000 new jobs and have an annual impact of $2 billion, according to Cheryl Kendrick, chairwoman of the Convention Center board of directors.

, Mike Allen

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Rolling On The Rhine:
El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars said it opened a service center in Dusseldorf, Germany, in conjunction with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Fender Musical Instruments, which is Taylor’s distributor in Europe.

, Brad Graves

Wednesday, Dec. 3

Hilton Opens Doors:
The Hilton San Diego Bayfront, a 30-story hotel with 1,190 guest rooms on 13 waterfront acres controlled by the Port of San Diego, officially opened. Owned by One Park Boulevard, a joint venture between Hilton Hotels and ING Clarion Partners, the new Hilton contains 165,000 square feet of meeting and event space, restaurants, health club and spa, business center and saltwater swimming pool.

, Connie Lewis

Thursday, Dec. 4

Cubic Earnings Slide:
Cubic Corp. reported lower profits and revenue for its 2008 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, mainly from a drop in sales in its defense segment.

For the year, Cubic’s net income was $36.9 million, down from $41.6 million in 2007. Revenue for the year was $881 million, down from $889.9 million in 2007.

Sales in the company’s defense unit declined 5 percent from the prior year to $607.8 million, with several lines affected by a transition of work from development stages to production phases, Cubic said.

The transportation unit showed a 15 percent increase in its sales to $272.3 million, with higher sales from contracts in the United Kingdom and Australia, and for spare parts in North America.

, Mike Allen