Los Angeles has often gotten a reputation for being a difficult place to start a business.  Given that it was ranked among the 10 least affordable metro areas, rendering an increase in business costs, one could understand why they may be put off from starting a company in the region.   As such, in this article we point to a couple of recent good news stories for the business world in LA.

On its very first day trading on Wall Street, Beyond Meat (BYND)’s investors sent shares up to 163%.  With shares going opening at $46 and closing on May 2 at $65.75, this was a huge success for the vegetarian based food producer.  This resulted in a market value for the firm of $3.8b.

Over at investment management firm Aristotle, the firm’s Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer Robert R. Womack Jr. was just named 2019’s Corporate CIO of the Year by the Los Angeles Business Journal.  He received this award for his “ tremendous accomplishments over the past few years, which included creating and leading Aristotle’s Business Solutions team during a period of rapid growth, executing a multi-year transformative initiative firmwide, and building Aristotle’s best-in-class technology platform to meet the needs of the company, its affiliates, and most importantly, Aristotle’s valued clients.”

And then there is Proper Hospitality co-founder and The Kor Group President Brian De Lowe who does not seem to be put off by doing business in California.  Later this year he is due to open two luxury hotels: one offering 270 rooms (and an 8,000 sq.ft rooftop) and the other with 148 rooms (and a 5,000 sq.ft rooftop), both in Santa Monica.