Prudential Overall Supply Named One of the Top Private Companies in Orange County!

Revenue, Jobs Rise for Private Cos.

A fragile national economy wasn’t enough to keep Orange County’s largest private companies from posting a third consecutive year of gains.

The 80 largest private companies here topped $60 billion in revenue last year, up 6% from the sales they had in 2010, according to this week’s Business Journal list.

Companies on our annual list have seen their cumulative revenue increase nearly 20% since the nadir of the last recession.

Employment gains continue at a slower pace than sales, according to this week’s list, which runs on page 16 and is the centerpiece of an issue focusing on OC’s largest private companies.

The companies on the list are estimated to employ 41,709 people in OC, a roughly 2% increase from year-ago levels. Local employment totals for companies on our list has increased about 13% over the past three years.

Companywide employment for the 80 companies now stands at 210,602, up 5% from a year ago.

The list ranks the largest private companies based here by 2011 sales or for the nearest 12-month period. The list includes companies owned by individuals or investor groups and excludes subsidiaries.

Because the companies are privately held, the list includes several estimates based on numbers from industry sources, databases and other sources (taking out estimates, the group grew sales at an even more impressive 11.6% clip last year.) It also includes several revisions to those on last year’s list.

Top-Heavy

Gains at the top of this week’s list made up a bulk of the roughly $3.5 billion jump in total revenue for the 80 companies on the list.

The top 10 companies on the list saw their revenue increase nearly $2.5 billion, or about 7%, over the past year.

A nearly 15% gain for Newport Beach-based Pacific Mutual Holding Co., parent of life insurer Pacific Life Insurance Co., helped the company return to the top spot of this week’s list with $6.7 billion in revenue.

Pacific Life, which sells insurance policies and investments to individuals, institutions and others and is estimated to have more than $100 billion in assets, had held the top spot on this list every year since 1994—until last year, when it was usurped by Kingston Technology Co.

Fountain Valley-based Kingston, a maker of memory products for computers and consumer electronics, had a blow-out year in 2010 that pushed it to the No. 1 spot. It saw—as expected—more tempered results last year with an estimated $5.8 billion in revenue and a return to the No. 2 spot for this week’s list.

New Entrants

This week’s list, which is always a work in progress, saw nine new entries. Based on size, some of the newcomers should have been on prior lists but were discovered this year. The nature of private companies means we’re constantly finding companies to add to our list.

Prominent new entries this year include Anaheim-based CashCall Inc., a maker of mortgage loans and personal loans.

The company—which employs about 1,300 people, 1,100 of them in OC—had an estimated $500 million in revenue last year, good for the No. 20 spot on the list and the highest of any new entry.

“The mortgage business has probably quadrupled in the last year, because interest rates are so low,” said CashCall owner Paul Reddam, who expects his company will do more than $600 million in annual revenue this year.

Another new entry on this week’s list is Irvine-based Red Digital Cinema Camera Co., a maker of digital cinema cameras and the owner of a Hollywood studio (see story, page 1).

Jim Jannard, who also founded Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc., started up Red Digital in 2005 and has seen the company’s sales grow to an estimated $300 million, placing it at No. 44 on the list.

Release date: 06/24/2012

Contact: Jerry Martin, V.P. of Sales & Marketing (949) 996-8976

By: By Mark Mueller www.ocbj.com