The document summarizes several stories from the Los Angeles Business Journal: 1) Developer Robert Maguire and AEG are proposing to build a new 600,000 square foot office tower downtown, the first in 20 years. 2) Kids sports networking site Weplay has gained major advertisers like Microsoft and Gatorade after initially struggling, and now has over 50,000 teams using its platform. 3) The Port of Los Angeles contracted Vision Motor Corp. in 2010 to develop the first hydrogen fuel cell truck, but the startup has faced delays and a former employee is suing over financial misrepresentations.

1. labusinessjournal.com
LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL
Volume 34, Number 17 THE COMMUNITY OF BUSINESS TM
April 23 - 29, 2012 • $3.00
Up Maguire, AEG Think Big Downtown Port Spins Wheels
Front REAL ESTATE: Office tower On Fuel-Cell Truck
would be area’s first in 20 years. SHIPPING: Former employee
By JACQUELYN RYAN Staff Reporter alleges trouble at L.A. contractor.
Veteran developer Robert Maguire is teaming up By ALFRED LEE Staff Reporter
with L.A. Live developer AEG to look into building
what would be downtown L.A.’s first new office It was in April 2010 when the Port of Los Ange-
Why Santa high-rise since the 1990s. les agreed to buy its first hydrogen fuel-cell truck,
Monica’s True- The proposal is still in the early stages, but part of an ambitious new program to invest in zero-
Car sponsors Maguire said he envisions a 600,000-square-foot emissions technology.
racers – but only building on what is now a parking lot across the street The truck would be the first of its size to run on
women. PAGE 3 from the L.A. Live entertainment complex and next a combination of two fledgling technologies, exotic
to two proposed Marriott International Inc. hotels fuel cells and electric car batteries. But the truck,
on Olympic Boulevard. expected within six months, has yet to be delivered
News & Maguire disclosed the plans at a Building Owners by local startup Vision Motor Corp.
In fact, the company has only produced one
Analysis Please see REAL ESTATE Page 50
RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ
Parking Space: Location of possible high-rise. truck for a client so far and has lost other business
due to delays.
Now, a former employee’s allegations in a law-
Please see SHIPPING Page 48
Investor Still Game
For Toymaker Deal
INVESTMENT: But Oaktree
Rob Dyrdek has harsh words for Jakks board.
buys the skate-
board company By RICHARD CLOUGH Staff Reporter
that made him
famous. PAGE 7 Oaktree Capital Manage-
ment LP’s contentious battle for
control of Jakks Pacific Inc. is
Real turning even nastier.
In a sharply worded letter last
Estate week, Oaktree said it has lost
confidence in the board and man-
agement of Jakks after being
repeatedly spurned in its efforts Berman
RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ
to buy the Malibu toymaker. Oaktree, an asset man-
agement firm in downtown Los Angeles that owns
about 5 percent of Jakks’ shares, said it is “deeply
concerned by the company’s financial performance
Teaming Up: Chief Executive Lane Soleberg at kids’ sports site Weplay in Santa Monica. Please see INVESTMENT Page 8
L.A. home sales
climb a bit, but
new listings
tumble big.
PAGE 36 New Ballgame? Body Scanner Maker
Sees Medical Devices
MAIL TO:
Kids’ sports site Weplay scores big-name advertisers As Sales Shot in Arm
By BETHANY FIRNHABER Staff Reporter big-name athletes to make it work. By JAMES RUFUS KOREN Staff Reporter
“I was thoroughly unimpressed,” sports blog-
In its rookie season, critics said social net- ger Darren Heitner wrote at the time. “I think this In the past few weeks, OSI Systems Inc. has
working and youth sports management site is a wrong move by all parties involved.” released a few new products – but they’re not the
Weplay Inc. wouldn’t make the cut. Yet Chief Executive Lane Soleberg said the Hawthorne company’s notorious airport body scan-
The site, backed by LeBron James, Peyton Man- site is thriving today now that it has ramped up ners or the massive cargo screeners that are becom-
ning, Derek Jeter and other sports stars, was created its advertising. After joining Weplay 18 months ing OSI’s bread and butter.
to provide a fun, safe place for kids to interact online ago, he has brought in advertising from big One new entry, called Arkon, is an operating-room
and talk about sports. It’s also a tool for parents and names such as Microsoft Corp., Gatorade, workstation and monitoring system for anesthesiolo-
coaches to organize and manage youth teams. American Family Insurance, Cartoon Network gists; the other, called Qube, is a portable patient-moni-
Even so, skeptics said the site’s offerings were and, most recently, Benedryl. toring system for use in hospital emergency rooms.
already abundant on the web. Plus, they con- Made by OSI unit Spacelabs Healthcare, they
tended, a social networking site needs more than Please see ONLINE Page 48
Please see MANUFACTURING Page 49
Awards Luncheon: May 24, 2012 For more
11:00am–1:30pm • J.W. Marriott at L.A. Live information,
Register today at www.labusinessjournal.com see page 12

2. 48 LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL APRIL 23, 2012
Online: Sports Site Now Makes Point of Scoring Ads
Soleberg said.
Continued from page 1 “Props” are badges kids can give on the
social networking site to recognize the stars
Previous online ventures backed by famous and each others’ athletic accomplishments.
athletes had failed, most notably online sport- Soleberg said the company wants to make
ing goods store MVP.com. Even with the likes subscriptions to the site a bigger portion of its
of John Elway, Michael Jordan and Wayne moneymaking efforts. A subscription to
Gretzky on board, the $65 million project went Weplay costs $10 a month and allows access
bust in 2001. to more organizing tools and games than are
When Weplay founder Steve Hansen available on the free version.
moved on to other entrepreneurial challenges, Soleberg declined to disclose revenue, but said
the company brought in Soleberg to drum up his efforts to bring in advertisers have paid off.
ad business. “Before I joined 18 months ago, there real-
Ad sales were key to the turnaround, the ly wasn’t any focus on how to monetize the
new chief executive said. platform,” Soleberg said. “Since then, we’ve
“They needed someone to come in and done multiple six figure deals with blue chip
focus on modernization and to work with big brands.”
brands,” Soleberg said. “Most of our relation- But while advertising is the company’s
ships are strategic partnerships. We spend the main source of revenue, Soleberg said Weplay
majority of our time looking for things that are doesn’t use targeted ads that mine personal
a win for all parties. A lot of times that information to generate ads.
requires some creative thinking about how we “We are very limited in the way that we do
make the best fit happen.” ads,” he said. “We don’t barrage kids with
Gatorade, for example, shows up as a ban- them. Teams might see only one ad on their
ner ad on the site’s nutrition section and on page all season long.”
snack-duty reminders. Microsoft’s motion-
sensing game-controller Kinect is advertised Less action
through the website’s calendar features, While many of the athletes were actively
reminding kids on Friday evenings that it’s RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ involved on the site to start, now their contri-
time for family game night. In Play: Chief Executive Lane Soleberg at the Santa Monica office of Weplay. butions are less frequent. They occasionally
American Family Insurance advertised on host training clinics, write blogs and update
Weplay by sponsoring subscription services to sports. Soleberg said when he joined the site, it Howard, Brandi Chastain and Sheryl Swoopes, their profiles.
the site for 1,000 high school football teams had a monthly audience of about 500,000, in addition to James, Manning, Jeter and Sanders, though, is an exception.
across the country. The insurance company is the which has now more than doubled. Sanders. Hansen, CAA and MLB Advanced Soleberg said she’ll start blogging soon on
only advertiser to appear on those teams’ pages. Media share ownership with investors. Weplay’s parent advice section about her expe-
The site launched an Allergy Alert mobile Athlete investors CAA Sports, a six-year-old division of the riences as both an Olympic athlete with allergies
app earlier this month that updates parents on Hansen founded the company in 2008 with talent agency, represents many of the athletes and as a mom with active kids who also have
pollen and weather conditions and offers sea- Creative Artists Agency in Century City and who invested in Weplay. allergies. He said she’ll draw from experiences
sonal how-to’s for managing allergies. The Major League Baseball Advanced Media in The athletes contribute to it in various ways, of everyday life, which may include things
new app coincided with Benedryl advertising New York. The social networking company though none is paid for his or her work. They she’ll pick up during the Olympics this summer.
on the site, as well as an announcement that incubated in the offices of Major League Base- participate because they have equity in the com- Sanders will be one of the athletes to run the
Olympic swimmer Summer Sanders, one of ball Advance Media for its first two-and-a-half pany and an interest in seeing it succeed. Olympic torch through Windsor, England on its
the site’s athlete investors, will be the public years, and is now headquartered in Santa Mon- In the months leading up to the site’s way to London this July.
face for Weplay’s new allergy awareness cam- ica with about 10 employees. launch, the athletes put together videos and Sanders said when her CAA agent
paign. Sanders, who trained in outdoor pools The company secured more than $13 mil- other multimedia content. They dug through approached her about Weplay in 2008, it
in Northern California during her youth, over- lion in its first six months from investors, old boxes to find photos and videos of them- brought back childhood memories.
came pollen and grass allergies to medal four including venture capital firms FirstMark selves in youth sports leagues. Each athlete has “I just think that even at the highest level of
times at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Capital LLC in New York and Deep Fork a personal profile page on the site where the any athlete, we all used to be kids playing
Spain, in 1992. Capital in Menlo Park; angel investor Ron kids can interact with them. youth sports and loving it,” she said. “That’s
Today, Weplay hosts more than 50,000 Conway; and professional athletes Tony Park- “If LeBron James plays a great game, he’ll the passion behind every pro athlete involved
teams and represents at least 60 different er, Jennie Finch, Shaun Alexander, Ryan have a ton of props coming in from the kids,” in this site.”
Shipping: Hydrogen Truck Company Yet to Deliver
when it acquired fuel-cell technology licenses
Continued from page 1 from Ice Conversions Inc., a Malibu firm
headed by Lawrence Weisdorn and Donald
suit may be creating a window into the ongoing Hejmanowski, who were made executives.
unrest at the El Segundo company. The allega- The company began working to produce
tions by Russell Miller Jr., a former investor vehicles that used hydrogen fuel cells to
relations director, portray a startup hampered by recharge electric batteries on heavy-duty
internal turmoil and miscommunication. trucks. The idea was it would order most of its
Indeed, the small public company of fewer parts from third parties, with its only propri-
than 10 employees has had three chief financial etary technology being the vehicle’s software.
officers, replaced its heads of investor relations By any measure, powering trucks with elec-
and business development, and sued two former tric car batteries is a cutting-edge technology,
executives since last year. All the while, the but adding fuel cells – which combine hydro-
company has received more than $700,000 from gen with oxygen to produce electricity –
the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach but moves the technology into the exotic realm.
has struggled to meet deadlines. Honda Motor Co. Ltd. has been leasing a
Vision’s struggles out of the gate aren’t small fleet of $1 million fuel-cell passenger
unique. In addition to Vision, L.A. port officials cars on a test basis to Southern California cus-
have given out millions of dollars in contracts to tomers since 2008. However, Honda has not
Balqon Corp., a Harbor City electric truck RINGO H.W. CHIU/LABJ found the technology viable enough to build a
maker. The port has paid Balqon $6.4 million Rocky Road: Vision’s Martin Schuermann with Tyrano truck in 2010. production model.
for electric trucks that couldn’t last a full shift his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that and into accounting practices,” Novian said. Still, Vision’s efforts sparked interest. It
and has spent more trying to retrofit them. Vision misled the public and its employees Martin Schuermann, Vision chief execu- showed off early versions of its Tyrano, a truck
One former Vision employee who spoke to about the company’s finances and progress of tive, denied the charges in an e-mail statement. designed to haul cargo to and from the ports, to
the Business Journal on the condition of its technology. “We deny any and all allegations in the L.A. port officials. It also displayed the truck at
anonymity described infighting and personality Miller was not made available for an inter- complaint by Russell Miller, a former employ- an October 2009 press conference in Sacra-
clashes, something echoed in Miller’s allegations, view by his attorney, Farhad Novian, who in a ee of Vision Motor Corp. The company will mento attended by then-Gov. Arnold
which depict several run-ins between employees brief interview with the Business Journal reit- defend its position to the fullest extent of the Schwarzenegger. During that event, Vision
and management over the company’s direction. erated the main claim in the lawsuit, which law, including seeking damages from the plain- executives pronounced bold plans to sell thou-
“It would have been a lot better run without was filed this month and is pending. tiff where appropriate,” the statement read. sands of trucks.
that type of culture,” the former employee said. “He was terminated in retaliation for the Vision, a transportation technology firm,
In addition to infighting, Miller claims in investigation into the company’s technology only got into the fuel-cell business in late 2008 Please see TRUCKING page 49