Wall Street West
by Benjamin Mark Cole

Quick Takes

It may sound Orwellian, but thanks to Westside venture capital shop Kline Hawkes & Co., the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will soon be able to download your DMV photo and other online information into their squad cars. Kline Hawkes has backed the Santa Fe Springs-based IP MobileNet Inc., which is providing software to the law enforcement agency, to turn squad cars into “rolling offices connected to a LAN (local area network),” said Kline Hawkes’ Jay Ferguson...

They say Los Angeles is a wacky town, but how about midtown Manhattan, where on Lexington Avenue resides The Astrologers Fund? According to a recent issue of its newsletter, “The Sept. 11 attacks were not a surprise to anyone who seriously studies terrorism or astrology.” This was dutifully recorded in a recent issue of Barron’s, also edited in New York. Astrologers manager Henry Weingarten further advises, “We expect markets higher in the fall, and foresee light at the end of the tunnel as Saturn-Opposition Pluto ends May 2002!”...

Still tough sledding for Torrance-based Imperial Credit Industries Inc., the diversified business lender that was so hot on Wall Street just a few years back. Now comes word Imperial is being delisted by Nasdaq and will try to trade on the over-the-counter bulletin board. The stock has failed to trade above $1 a share consistently, a minimum set by the Nasdaq...

Los Angeles-based brokerage Jefferies Group Inc. continues to be a strong stock, trading last week in the $50 a share range, up from under $30 shortly after Sept. 11. Jefferies is rising while other brokerages, such as Merrill Lynch, have weakened amid investor concerns about which brokerage New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer will target next.

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