around the valleys

– San Fernando Valley Glendale Apollo Medical Holdings Inc. has started a business that will operate doctor clinics. The Glendale company, which provides doctors to hospitals, said ApolloMed Care Clinics would include both primary care doctors and post-discharge practices. The focus will be on preventative medicine and chronic condition treatment. The company said it has purchased three clinics and will start one from scratch. The company did not provide exact locations, but said all the clinics are in the Los Angeles region. Burbank Video entertainment network Machinima Inc. has received $18 million in financing led by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The investment by the Burbank studio builds on an existing partnership with Machinima, in Los Angeles, which has distributed two seasons of “Mortal Kombat: Legacy,” a live-action Web series produced by Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. Machinima started in 2000 as a website to promote the creation of animated videos in virtual world environments and later expanded into an online multi-channel network. Continued restructuring in the interactive division of Walt Disney Co. will result in the firing of about a quarter of its workforce. The Burbank entertainment and media company will make the 700 job cuts by closing offices in Chicago, New Jersey, Colorado, South Korea and Hyderabad, India. This latest round of layoffs includes the previously reported loss of 200 jobs at the interactive division’s Playdom.com social media site business. Disney bought the site in 2010. Disney Interactive made prior staffing cuts in November 2012, March 2011 and January 2011. Worthe Real Estate Group is purchasing the nearly vacant Tower Burbank for $109 million, a significant discount to when it last traded hands. The 32-story high rise at 3900 W. Alameda Ave. had been largely occupied by Walt Disney Co., but the Burbank company left last spring to consolidate operations in Glendale and its headquarters campus at 500 Buena Vista Ave. There were reports immediately following Disney’s departure that owner BlackRock Inc. was trying to unload the high rise. The New York asset management company bought the building in 2005 for $167 million. Chatsworth JPMorgan Chase & Co. is eliminating 165 workers from its Chatsworth mortgage-processing office. The layoffs are part of ongoing staff cuts totaling about 15,000 workers nationwide that the New York bank announced last year. The staffing cuts are a second round at the San Fernando Valley location, where 300 employees were laid off six months ago. Some of those employees were hired by a Florida law firm that is expanding nationwide and specializes in defaults, foreclosures and other problem mortgages. Calabasas Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc. has signed a marketing agreement with Bayer Consumer Care AG. The Calabasas developmental drug company has worked for years on ATX-101, a treatment to dissolve fat under the chin. The agreement gives Kythera the right to commercialize ATX-101 outside of the U.S. and Canada. In exchange, Bayer will receive $33 million in Kythera stock and a $51 million promissory note due March 2024. – Conejo Valley Westlake Village Dole Food Co. was replaced as the world’s largest banana supplier when Chiquita Brands International Inc. announced it will merge with Fyffes Plc by the end of the year. Prior to the announcement, Dole in Westlake Village held 26 percent of market share in the banana trade, according to a 2011 report from U.K.-based research firm Banana Link. Chiquita of Charlotte, N.C. and Fyffes of Dublin would account for a 27 percent market share, with the brands currently holding 22 percent and 5 percent respectively. Thousand Oaks Agricultural biotech Ceres Inc. has completed a secondary stock offering totaling $23 million. The Thousand Oaks company sold 20 million shares at a price of $1 per share. Aegis Capital Corp. of New York, the sole book runner, exercised its option to purchase an additional 3 million shares. The company said the proceeds from the offering, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions, will be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital. The company develops seeds for ethanol fuel crops but has yet to turn a profit since going public in February 2012. – Santa Clarita Valley Santa Clarita The Santa Clarita Valley is offering new economic incentives to attract industrial companies to the region. The Santa Clarita Economic Development Corp., in partnership with L.A. County, has set aside $200,000 for Industry Cluster Attraction Incentives. The aim is to attract new businesses to the targeted industries of aerospace, medical devices, information technology, manufacturing and entertainment. Incentives of up to $40,000 will be awarded. To qualify, businesses must begin operations in the Santa Clarita Valley with at least 40 employees. The Newhall Ranch development hit yet another snag as environmentalists filed a federal lawsuit to halt construction. The Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment and other environmental groups filed the suit earlier this month in Los Angeles federal court. It names the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as defendants, claiming permits the agencies provided in 2011 for the sprawling project weren’t warranted. Newhall Land & Farming Co. is seeking to build 20,000 residences and 5 million square feet of office space on more than 2,500 acres over the next 30 years. The Alfred Mann Foundation will create a medical device company called Medallion Therapeutics Inc. to provide targeted delivery solutions for pharmaceuticals and biologic therapies. Medallion’s product line centers around its recently introduced drug delivery infusion pump, which was designed by Mann employees to deliver small doses of concentrated medication to a targeted site in the body to relieve pain. The company launched last month and is operating from an existing Mann building in Valencia.