Cashing Out?

The slowing national and regional economies are prompting an increasing number of businesspeople to liquidate their assets. Insiders at local companies are dumping shares, with many opting to sock away cash in safe places rather than ride the stock market roller coaster any longer. Even hugely successful entrepreneurs like biotech billionaire Alfred Mann, who last week agreed to sell MiniMed Inc., are taking plenty of their chips off the table. So the Business Journal asks:

Given the slumping economy, have you recently liquidated any assets, or are you considering doing so in the near future?

Andy Howard

Managing Principal ARUP

I don't believe in the slump. I'm busy accumulating assets like they're going out of fashion. I've been here for six weeks. I came from Zimbabwe, Africa. If you compare (the U.S. economy) with the economies of southern Africa, you'd believe it's still in a very healthy condition.

Cyrano Adlawan

Associate Stone Co.

For a while now, I thought the market was high, so I had a lot of my stuff in government bonds. I was basically taking the more conservative approach when the market was peaking and I have not yet become active in the stock market. I haven't found it attractive, in terms of bargains, to go into the stock market.

Joe Czyzyk

Chief Executive

Mercury Air Group Inc.

We have a subsidiary in Florida that is not core, and we are in the process of selling that business. It's not a business that we can support. It's a software business and we're more of a brick-and-mortar company. If I wasn't as concerned about the current economy, then I would have more enthusiasm in investing. I have a policy now in which I am developing my core business, which is aviation service and fuel. I think that sticking to your knitting in this kind of an uncertainty is very fundamental -- particularly if you're a public company, as I am, and need to produce earnings per share.

Gabrielle Kym-Bourne

Director of Member and Volunteer Relations Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce

I was working for DeBourne Kelly Enterprises (before joining the chamber), and they specialized in buying up a lot of the small tech companies. In order for us to maintain our relationship with those tech companies, we wanted to pump money into those companies during the slump. In order for us to do that, we had to liquidate our assets, including real estate. I had to dump some stock because I was not making any money. I was severely invested in the dot-com industry. For the past five years, that's all I was doing, and I bought a lot of stock. When the stock started dropping and the first wave of pink-slip parties started to happen, that was the handwriting on the wall. It makes you realize how conservative people have to be. At times, even though we feel that things are going great, there's always going to be a roadblock. So, this is a very good time for us to be more aware of what we need to do to better plan for the future.