Global business consulting firm Andersen, formerly known as Andersen Tax, has opened a San Diego office as part of its expansion into Southern California.
A number of consulting professionals from Reibman, a San Diego tax compliance and planning firm, will be staffing the new office.
Allen Reibman will manage office.
“Greater San Diego is home to the second largest population of Californians, with one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the country in areas like Del Mar, La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe,” said Anderson executive Chad Thiel in a news release.
Thiel is managing the private client services unit for the office.
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Concentric, a unit of biosecurity Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks, is teaming with local DNA sequencing technology company Illumina “to set up pathogen monitoring programs utilizing Illumina technology.”
Concentric Ginkgo is constructing a global pathogen monitoring network — what it calls a “bioradar” system — to detect and respond rapidly to infectious threats, according to a news release.
Under the arrangement, the two will demonstrate the use of Illumina’s products with Concentrics’s bioradar to speed expansion of the pathogen monitoring network.
“The goal is to empower countries and increase the scale of pathogen genomic surveillance globally,” the release said.
Concentric and Illumina will market their solutions “to enhance early warning of emerging pathogens and fill gaps in global bio surveillance infrastructure.”
Matt McKnight, an executive for Ginkgo Bioworks, said in a prepared statement, “Through this relationship with Illumina, Concentric aims to accelerate deployment of our early warning and bioradar programs for governments worldwide.”
“The shared objective is to build local bio surveillance capacity, empowering nations locally and sustainably, rather than relying on unreliable third parties,” he said.
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San Diego residential developer Liberty National Corp. has acquired a property on Third Avenue in the Cortez Hill neighborhood of San Diego for a future multi-family project.
The developer said the 23,000-square-foot property will offer “convenient access to key city attractions such as Balboa Park, Little Italy, and San Diego’s Bayfront”
Liberty National founder Mark Schmidt said the appeal of the property was its strategic location and potential for providing additional housing.
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San Diego robotics artificial intelligence startup Brain Corp. has introduced a new software tool that helps retailers keep track of their inventory by using robots that move around on their own.
According to a news release, stores currently have employees manually check inventory on shelves. However, robots and AI can make the process easier.
For example, it can save food stores money by reducing mistakes with product availability and prices.
This is a big deal because mistakes like these cost stores more than 6% of total sales.
The Brain Corp. robots work independently to collect inventory data, moving around in busy and public places while allowing employees to focus on other tasks.
The robots have nifty features like advanced sensors, smart navigation and automatic charging.
The company believes robots will make inventory checks more efficient and less costly.
The company says its tools power 30,000 robots worldwide.
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Home buyers are getting “some much-needed relief, and more homeowners appear to be breaking free of ‘rate lock,’” according to the latest monthly report from web-based commercial real estate broker Zillow. However, despite improvements in inventory, competition for homes is still relatively stiff, the report found.
Inventory continues to make slogging progress out of its pandemic hole. Inventory made its first annual gains since April, and levels are now 36% below pre-pandemic averages, an improvement over the 46% deficit seen in May.
The flow of new listings to the market is slightly better than a year before, and although levels are 14.5% below pre-pandemic norms, they seem to be trending in the right direction. Time will tell if that progress continues in 2024.
The good news is that in San Diego, inventory is up 31% compared to the period before the pandemic, the Zillow report found.
Meanwhile, in San Diego, the average home purchase price is up 8.4% year over year, with a monthly increase in December over November up just 0.2%.
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Business news service Bloomberg is reporting that 121 Apple workers in San Diego have been told that they have to relocate to Austin, TX.
But apparently few want to make the move, according to the news service.
So, the Cupertino-based computer giant says it will probably lay off those who choose to remain in San Diego.
They have until the end of February to decide and will be terminated in late April.
The employees work within Apple’s voice recognition system Siri.
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Finally, this item of note about the new year.
Alan Nevin, who bills himself as a futurist in addition to his role as director of economic research for Gafcon, a local provider of construction management services, has issued a few predictions for how the year 2024 will play out.
“It appears to me that 2024 will be a near clone of 2023, with three notable exceptions, interest rates will subside; real estate sales (new and resale) will pick up; and there will be more money spent on the presidential election than in any other time in U.S. history.”
Within the U.S., he said in a brief report, California remains No. 1 in terms of its gross domestic product with Texas and New York somewhat farther behind.
In terms of ongoing economic success among counties in the U.S., San Diego County ranks as the 10th largest in terms of its GDP. “
“That’s pretty impressive!” he said.
When it comes to the upcoming Presidential election in November, Nevin is hesitant to make a prediction.
However, he does offer insights based on possible correlations between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the outcome of previous elections.
Projecting the Dow Jones average historically means having the ability to determine which party wins, he wrote.
“In seven out of seven Democratic presidential wins, the Dow Jones increased. In only one of five Republican wins did the Dow increase,” he said in his prediction. “We will not venture a guess on this one, but we know it will be close and bloody.”
Nevin has posted his report on the San Diego Association of Realtors website.
Tom York is a Carlsbad-based independent journalist who specializes in writing about business and the economy. If you have news tips you’d like to share, send them to tom.york@gmail.com.
