On April 13, Lisa Bhathal Merage\u00a0was in the war room of the Portland Fire, as the expansion WNBA franchise her Raj Sports\u00a0owns took part in the league\u2019s annual draft, choosing Spain\u2019s Iyana Mart\u00edn Carri\u00f3n\u00a0with the seventh pick.<\/p>\n
Two days later, Merage was at Ocean 48\u00a0in Newport Center, at a dinner honoring her and the other winners of the Business Journal\u2019s March 26 Excellence in Entrepreneurship (EiE) Awards.<\/p>\n
The attendees counted several local food heavyweights, including Pick Up Stix\u00a0founder Charlie Zhang, the keynote speaker of the EiE event, and a 2025 award winner. Guests also included EiE winners Ivy Ha and Viet Nguyen\u00a0of Kei Concepts, who were honored last month as our Restaurateurs of the Year.<\/p>\n
Also on hand: EiE winners Kavous Gitibin\u00a0of Go Rentals, Kurt Busch\u00a0of Syntiant Corp and Vinnie Curcie\u00a0of OC Solar, along with Ocean 48\u2019s Oliver Badgio\u00a0and Business Journal Publisher Richard Reisman.<\/p>\n
Merage, whose Newport Beach-based firm also owns the Portland Thorns\u00a0women\u2019s soccer team, is putting down roots in that city, recently buying a condo at Portland\u2019s Ritz-Carlton\u00a0tower.<\/p>\n
Syntiant\u2019s Busch counted the longest business trips among the EiE winners, with the semiconductor and AI computing company\u2019s manufacturing operations spread across several locations in Asia, requiring frequent overseas trips.<\/p>\n
The firm, founded in 2017 and expected to go public in the next year or two, opened a new manufacturing and R&D campus in Malaysia this January that supports 800 workers.<\/p>\n
Pimco\u2019s close ties to Washington, D.C., appear set to continue.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump this month nominated Erin Browne\u00a0to serve as the Treasury Department\u2019s under secretary for international affairs, a role that includes overseeing U.S. economic policy on the\u00a0G7\u00a0and G20, as well as international finance, debt, trade and relations with the World Bank\u00a0and IMF.<\/p>\n
Browne currently is a managing director and portfolio manager in the Newport Beach office of the bond giant, \u201cleading asset allocation strategies, including Pimco\u2019s multi-asset funds and RealPath Blend target date offering,\u201d the company says.<\/p>\n
She joined the firm in 2018. Over the past seven years, her RealPath Blend mutual funds \u201crank, on average, in the top half of their peer groups and rank even better on a risk-adjusted basis,\u201d according to a Morningstar analysis last month.<\/p>\n
Pimco said in an internal memo that Browne would remain \u201cfully engaged and collaborating both with clients and colleagues until (the Senate confirmation) process is complete.\u201d<\/p>\n
CEO Manny Roman\u00a0and Chief Investment Officer Daniel Ivascyn\u00a0said in a note to staff that they were \u201chonored that this continues Pimco\u2019s proud record of seeing our colleagues selected to serve in key roles in public office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben Bernanke, former chair of the Federal Reserve, retired from his role on Pimco\u2019s Global Advisory Board (GAB) last year after a 10-year run. He was replaced on the GAB by Janet Yellen, the former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and Fed Chair. Gordon Brown, the former U.K. prime minister, now chairs the GAB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On April 13, Lisa Bhathal Merage\u00a0was in the war room of the Portland Fire, as the expansion WNBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-288381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}