Titan Corp. Signs With Kraft Foods
The Titan Corp. has signed an agreement with Kraft Foods, Inc. to research using Titan’s SureBeam technology for electronic pasteurization on processed foods. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Titan’s SureBeam system uses electricity as its energy source to destroy potentially harmful bacteria in food without affecting taste, texture, or nutritional qualities.
Signal Prepares $70 Million IPO
Signal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of $70 million of shares of its common stock.
All of the shares being offered are being sold by the company.
Signal is a San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing new classes of small molecule drugs that regulate genes associated with disease.
E-Commerce Not Yet Global
E-commerce in the regions of North America, Europe and Asia Pacific will make up more than 90 percent of all worldwide E-commerce in 2000.
“Over the next three years, the worldwide E-commerce market will open up in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific and grow to $9.5 trillion in transactions by 2003, or about 93 percent of the worldwide total,” said Michael Erbschloe, vice president of research for Computer Economics, a local research firm.
“It is going to take another decade or more as well as a lot of funding to grow the Web globally,” Erbschloe said.
Online marketers looking to target their products to individual consumers, rather than businesses, should be particularly wary of attempting to build market share in regions other than North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, said Erbschloe.
Hellman & Friedman Buys Mitchell Int’l.
Hellman & Friedman LLC, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, is acquiring Mitchell International.
The San Diego-based software information services provider to the insurance and automotive collision repair industries is being bought from The Thomson Corp. Purchase price was not released.
Amylin Raises $100 Million
Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has entered into definitive agreements to sell 8.3 million shares of newly issued common stock to selected institutional and private investors for gross proceeds of $100 million.
The purchase price is $12 per share, representing a discount of about 4 percent from the prior 20-day average trading price of the company’s common stock.
Institutional investors include two funds managed by Capital Research and Management Company: Growth Fund of America and Smallcap World Fund, Deerfield Management Co. and INVESCO Funds Group.
Venture Catalyst Buys CT Interactive
San Diego high tech incubator Venture Catalyst Inc. signed a Letter of Intent to acquire privately held CT Interactive Inc. for $2.3 million.
Under the proposed transaction, all of the privately held stock of CT Interactive will be exchanged for $2 million in Venture Catalyst common stock and $300,000 in cash.
The closing of the transaction is subject completion of due diligence, approval from Venture Catalyst’s board of directors and regulatory approvals.
Venture Catalyst provides investor relations, public relations and marketing, strategic planning, incubation facilities, and Web development services.
Software Engineering
Center Opens
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding and El Cajon Mayor Mark Lewis were honored guests Feb. 25 at the opening of the San Diego Defense & Space Technology Consortium’s newly completed Software Engineering Center in El Cajon.
Formed in late 1998, the consortium promotes the growth and competitiveness of the county’s defense and space technology industry.
The opening of the software engineering center marks the establishment of the first and largest collaborative engineering project of its type in San Diego County.
, Edited by Martin Hill
New Cove Owners Discuss Theater’s Future
The new owners of the Cove Theater site in La Jolla expect to keep their recent purchase as a movie theater, a spokesman said.
However, they may turn it into a multiplex with up to three theaters, he said.
Cove Theater LP bought the site from in early January, said the spokesman, who did not want to be identified. He works with PHP Management Inc. in La Jolla, which represents the new owners. Norman Goldberg was the building’s previous owner, published reports say.
The site, on Girard Avenue, includes the 650-seat theater and two retail spaces.
The spokesman said although the new owners want the Cove to remain a movie theater, they think it may be difficult to find an operator for a smaller theater.
However, the company’s “first choice” for the operator would be the theater’s management since 1983, Landmark Theatres Corp., the spokesman said. Landmark leases the theater on a month-to-month basis, he said.
Cary Jones, vice president of marketing for Landmark, said his company has begun to discuss its future at the Cove with the theater’s new owners.
In San Diego, Landmark also leases the Hillcrest Cinemas, Ken Cinema in Kensington and La Jolla Village Cinemas, Jones said. The theaters show independent, foreign and art films.
Los Angeles-based Landmark is owned by Silver Cinemas, Inc., in Dallas.
—BY Tanya Rodrigues, Staff Writer
Dura Pharmaceuticals Reports Higher Earnings
San Diego-based Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. recently announced financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31.
Dura reported total revenues of $90.6 million for the fourth quarter, and $301.4 million for all of 1999. Earnings per diluted share for the full year were up 34 percent from 1998, up to 71 cents.
Revenue from pharmaceutical sales totaled $71.1 million for the fourth quarter and $231.8 million for the year, reflecting increases of 76 percent and 70 percent above 1998 figures.
Cam Garner, chairman and CEO of Dura, attributes the increase of revenues to the successful promotion of Dura brand products in hospitals. All Dura products met or exceeded their sales targets for 1999, Garner reports.
Dura is a developer and marketer of prescription pharmaceutical products for the treatment of allergies, asthma, pneumonia and related respiratory conditions.
Books Distributor Reports Rise in Quarterly Sales
Advanced Marketing Services, a San Diego-based distributor of books and related items to membership warehouse clubs around the globe, announced its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2000.
Net sales for the quarter ending Jan. 1 rose 33 percent to $233.6 million from the comparable period last year.
