Firms

SHENZHEN, China - Gov. Jerry Brown, visiting the headquarters of an electric car and bus manufacturer here, announced Tuesday that the company would open a factory in Lancaster, the first Chinese-owned vehicle plant on American soil. The firm, Build Your Dreams, or BYD, will put 10 new plug-in buses on the streets of Long Beach beginning next year after assembling them in the Lancaster facility, with hopes of producing dozens more in coming years. "It's very significant," said Brown, speaking in this southern port city on the last full day of his weeklong visit to China.

“The revolution will be televised.” That's what Sean “Diddy” Combs promises for his lifestyle cable network, Revolt, set to launch in July. Ahead of the launch, the hip-hop mogul has rolled out a social media campaign to tease the network, including video vignettes that feature Mac Miller and the Game and a handful of cryptic trailers promising Revolt's aim to be a game changer. The channel will focus on art, music, fashion, culture and film -- all things Combs knows quite well.

NEW YORK - Auditor Scott London isn't the only one dealing with a dented reputation. His former employer, KPMG, is scrambling to do damage control after an insider-trading scandal swept through its Los Angeles office. It has put many of the Big Four accounting firm's clients on edge, wondering if there's more to come as the federal government continues its investigation. The Department of Justice said London leaked inside information on five public companies, including Herbalife Ltd. and Skechers USA Inc., to a golfing buddy who then executed trades.

The top candidate to build the first 29 miles of California's bullet train in the Central Valley bid just under $1 billion, below the state estimate of the cost, project officials announced Friday. The California High-Speed Rail Authority said Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons, a joint venture of U.S. firms, submitted a bid of about $985 million and was ranked first out of five competitors. The team offered the "apparent best value" based on price and technical proposals, evaluators said.

Nestled on the windy plains at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains, once austere stretches of agricultural land have morphed into the country's most desirable industrial real estate market, and it is growing faster than any other industrial region in the U.S. Among the many merchants running large-scale operations now are such household names as Amazon.com Inc., Kohl's Corp., Skechers USA Inc., Mattel Inc. and Stater Bros. Markets. They come for vast warehouses - some are bigger than 30 football fields under one roof - where they can store, process and ship merchandise such as clothes, books and toys to ever more online shoppers and handle the rising flood of goods passing through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Sanuk, the Irvine footwear firm known for selling its quirky sandals in surf specialty shops, is coming to beachy Santa Monica this week with its first-ever company-owned store. The flagship shop on the Santa Monica Promenade opens Friday. The lo-fi design is meant to evoke a garage - inspired in part by the space out of which Sanuk founder Jeff Kelley first started crafting shoes in 1998. Jake Brandman, Sanuk's president, said in an interview that he considers the store “a place to play.” The 1,000-square-foot location features a wall display crammed with a hodgepodge of yard-sale and thrift-store finds, including a guitar, a surfboard, a Buddha statue in a fish tank and a pile of videotapes such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Free Willy.”  “Consumers are looking for a diversion from all the serious brands they see in a marketplace,” Brandman said.

After facing several years of stiff competition from recent college graduates and other displaced workers, teenagers are expected to find more summer job openings as retailers expand hiring, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. The firm's outlook, released Thursday, predicts that seasonal hiring will be stronger this year -- and teens will benefit. “There will definitely be more opportunities for teenagers seeking employment this summer," said John A. Challenger, chief executive of the consulting firm.

The Hollywood entertainment marketing company the Cimarron Group has closed its office in Beijing after less than a year in operation. The development underscores the challenges American companies face when trying to do business in China, where movies must meet the approval of government censors and studios are subject to rules that restrict how much revenue they can collect on box-office ticket sales. Cimarron, which creates movie trailers and TV spots as well as print and digital ad campaigns for major studio movies, opened the office last year as part of an effort to grow its business in China, now the second-largest market for Hollywood films.

This was the last thing Herbalife Ltd. needed. Just as the Los Angeles company appeared to be regaining its footing from a Wall Street hedge fund manager's assault, the company's auditor resigned abruptly because of an alleged insider-trading scandal. Accounting giant KPMG said Tuesday that Scott London, its chief Southern California auditor, had divulged financial information about Herbalife to a friend who then used those secrets to gain an edge in the markets. KPMG fired London, who had supervised Herbalife's audits, and withdrew its approval of the company's financial statements.

ROME -- The operator of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which struck rocks and partially sank off Italy last year, killing 32 people, agreed  Wednesday to pay a $1.3-million fine to avoid a possible criminal trial. A judge in Tuscany accepted the plea agreement for Costa Crociere , a division of Miami-based Carnival Corp. , in connection with the shipwreck off the island of Giglio in January 2012. The company will not face trial, but a hearing is scheduled Monday in Tuscany to determine whether six of the firm's employees --  including the vessel's captain, Francesco Schettino , who is accused of steering the vessel ontothe   rocks --  must stand trial on charges that inclu de manslaughter.