March 2011 Archives

The second BritWeek and U.K. Trade & Investment Business Innovation Awards is accepting contest entries until March 31. Businesses with operations in both California and the United Kingdom are eligible.

A panel, including Maggie Shiels of the BBC and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Richard Irving, will determine the winners.

The awards will be presented at the BritWeek Gala Dinner in San Francisco on May 12. BritWeek, a brainchild of producer Nigel Lythgoe, is a nonprofit group that aims to highlight the connection between Britain and California.

Interested companies can fill out the nomination form here.

An open house on April 17 at the Pomona Valley Veterinary Hospital will showcase the remodeled facility, the hospital said.

Clients can attend the grand re-opening to view the hospital at 158 W. McKinley Ave. in Pomona from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event is planned to include door prizes and refreshments.

Dr. Tahir A. Kahn opened Pomona Valley Veterinary Hospital in 1981. For more information, call 909-623-2602.

Janice Rutherford, supervisor for San Bernardino County's Second District, announced a business roundtable meeting to be held Thursday night.

Rutherford called the meeting meet business managers and entrepreneurs in order to collect ideas on how county government may be able to improve the business climate, her office announced.

The event is set to be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Jessie Turner Community Center, 15556 Summit Ave., Fontana.

Information: 909-387-4833 or www.sbcounty.gov/rutherford.

The Upland Chamber of Commerce's networking breakfast, First Friday, will be on Friday at the Carnegie Building.

The event's topic is "Beyond Social Media: Other Fun Tools to Gain Visibility in Your Market."

The cost is $10 for members and $15 for others. Brunswick Zone is the sponsor and Pine Haven Catering & Confections is providing the breakfast. Check in begins at 7 a.m. The Carnegie Building is at 123 E. D St. in Upland.

RSVP at 909-204-4465.

For the third year in a row, a Cal Poly Pomona team won the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. The 20-hour competition took place over three days beginning March 25 at Cal Poly Pomona.

The team, made up of students from the Business Administration, Science and Engineering colleges, will go on to compete at the national competition next month.

Students worked to create a West Coast backup operations center while fending off attacks from hackers. This year's competition scenario included a series of terrorist attacks, both physical and virtual, that shut down U.S. stock trading for several weeks.

Five other schools competed in the cyber defense event, including Cal State San Bernardino, which placed second, and Arizona's University of Advancing Technology, which placed third.

CVB Financial Corp.'s shares jumped a day after the Ontario-based lender said it had sold its underperforming loans. Shares shot up 9.14 percent to close at $8.84 on Tuesday.

CVB, the parent company to Citizens Business Bank, sold six of seven notes, which were held in connection to the bank's relationship with its largest borrower, for $41 million in a deal that closed Friday. The undisclosed buyer paid $36 million in cash and $5 million in the form of a note secured by an office building near CVB Financial's Ontario headquarters.

The borrower ran into trouble paying off its loans to CVB last year, leading CVB to charge off $34 million in loans at the time. The most recent sale added $1.9 million in charge offs from the lending relationship. MarketWatch has reported that Paul Garrett, the chairman of Temecula-based real estate investment firm The Garrett Group LLC, is CVB's largest borrower.

Billionaire Ronald Burkle's firm, The Yucaipa Companies, has invested $10 million in AquaHydrate, the Colton-based sports water company said Tuesday. The infusion of money is expected to accelerate the seven-year-old company's national roll out of its enhanced drinks, AquaHydrate said.

Actor Mark Wahlberg, who first tried the drink while training for the film "The Fighter," is on the company's board. AquaHydrate's also the official sports beverage for the USA Water Polo Teams as they train for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The sports drink is a purified, alkaline water with electrolytes and trace minerals. AquaHydrate is in more than 2,200 stores in the U.S., including grocery, health and natural food stores.

"AquaHydrate is one of the most exciting brands in the bottled water industry with great potential for future growth," Burkle said.