Irvine Co. Promotes Executives, Forms Management Committee to Run Company

IRVINE, CA-Richard G. Sim, president of The Irvine Co.’s Investment Properties Group, and two other company executives have been promoted in a reorganization of the firm that will also consolidate the Irvine Apartment Communities division under the auspices of the Investment Properties Group.

Sim, who has been with the firm since 1981, has been appointed to the newly created role of chairman of the Investment Properties Group by company chairman Donald Bren. Sim will be replaced as president by Clarence Barker, formerly president of Irvine Apartment Communities.

“When Donald bought control of the Irvine Company in 1984 he asked me to start the Investment Properties Group,” Sim says. “When I took over we had three-million sf of income properties. Today we have 30 million sf and it’s all rented, and we’re approaching 30,000 apartments. What we did was we had the apartments broken out as a separate company because at one time it was a public company. We thought it was time to bring it all together.”

Sim will join Bren, and the company’s CFO and vice chairman Mike McKee, as the founding members of the newly formed Operations Management Committee, which will coordinate the company’s two operating groups. “We have a commercial side and a residential side,” Sim says.As president of the Investment Properties Group, Barker will join with Joseph Davis, president of Irvine Community Development Co., in reporting directly to the Operations Management Committee. Max Gardner, who is currently EVP of Irvine Apartment Communities, has been promoted to president of IAC and will report directly to Barker.

“One of the greatest strengths of the Irvine Co. is the depth of skills and experience among our employees,” says Bren. Sim sees the biggest challenge of his new position as being involved with operation of the entire company instead of just one division. On the positive side he views the company reorganization as essential in preparation for the next generation of company management. “It’s a beginning to developing those executives that we think a lot of,” he says.

Once the owner of 200 square miles, or 25% of all land in Orange County, today Irvine still has control over 54,000 acres. The company also has an investment portfolio that includes office and industrial properties and retail centers in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and north San Diego totaling 19.5 million sf.

The retail centers include Fashion Island in Newport Beach, the Irvine Spectrum Center and the Market Place. Included in its holdings are two hotels: the Irvine Hyatt Regency and the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach; five marinas with a total of 476 slips in Newport Harbor; and three golf courses, including the Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Beach and the Oak Creek Golf Club in Irvine. At present, Irvine Apartment Communities has 77 apartment properties in its portfolio.