Andrew Lam Receives Award From SPJ

The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has released its 2009 Excellence in Journalism Awards. Winners will be honored at a 6 p.m. awards dinner on November 10, 2009 at Jillian's restaurant in San Francisco.

Among the winners is Andrew Lam for Best Opinion. Andrew Lam is an editor for New America Media, the largest ethnic news organization in the country. He also is a commentator for National Public Radio and recently published his book - "Perfumed Dreams - The Reflection of Vietnamese Diaspora".

He receives the award for "Letter from Athens: Greek Tragedies and News Media in the Age of Twitter", "Our Man Obama: The Post-Imperial Presidency" and "How McCain Became MacBeth", the opinion pieces reflected a unique ability to portray contemporary events in a rich context by drawing on history, literature and philosophy.

Winners in other catogories include:

Journalist of the Year: Holly Kernan, KALW Public Radio
Career Achievement: Susan Sward, formerly of the San Francisco Chronicle
Distinguished Service to Journalism: Paul Kleyman, New America Media
Unsung Hero: Geoff Link, Central City Extra
John Gothberg Award for Meritorious Service to SPJ: Janet Mandelstam, freelance writer
The Economy: Charles Piller, Sacramento Bee
Public Service: Sean Webby, San Jose Mercury News
Breaking News
- Print (daily): The Oakland Tribune

- Broadcast: Steven Short, KALW-FM

Explanatory Journalism
- Print (daily): Nanette Asimov and Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle,

- Print (non-daily): Joe Eskenazi, SF Weekly,

- Broadcast: Craig Miller and the Quest Production Staff, KQED Public Media

- Online: MarketWatch, for "The Spiral of Deflation,"

Investigative Journalism- Print (daily): Sean Webby, San Jose Mercury News

The complete of winner is listed on

http://www.mediabistro.com/baynewser/bay_area_journos/diverse_winners_in_society_of_professional_journalists_awards_137004.asp

Tram Be & Vallco Fashion Park

Tram Be, 50, a real estate tycoon in Vietnam, recently invested $60 million to buy Cupertino Square - previously known as Vallco Fashion Park. .

Tram Be is known to have investment in Southern Bank (Ngan Hang Phuong Nam), Trieu An Hospital in HCM City, and other real estate investments in Binh Chanh (HCM City).

He has close tie with Le thanh Hai who is currently the person in charge of HCM City, the largest city in Vietnam (equivalent to a mayoral position).

This is a first multimillion dollar investment by a Vietnamese from Vietnam (a communist dictatorship country) into Silicon Valley, albeit real estate or hi-tech companies.

Located in one of Silicon Valley’s most prosperous communities, the 4th biggest mall in San Jose has a checkered history.

The origininal investors of the mall is consisted of Vietnamese-American and Chinese-American investors in the Bay Area. One of the Vietnamese-Americans is the owner of Grand Century Mall on Senter Road. They were hoping to turn the mall into the largest Asian mall in the US. They acquiried the mall for $80 million in early 2003 from foreclosure after the previous owners defaulted on the mortgage. They were forced to sell the majority of their equity in late 2007 to an international turnaround specialist OrbitResources (A Tawainese company with Philip Liao as its CEO) after running into financial troubles for missteps, particularly the over construction costs for a new 16-screen theater. Orbit became then the main investor in Cupertino Square LLC and Vallco International Shopping Center, LLC.

According to a San Jose Business Journal's article published on 9-4-2008, Gramercy (a New York-based real estate investment trust) is the lender of a $113 million construction loan. The mall owners filed for bankruptcy on 9-2-2008 because they could not meet their debt obligation.

The reorganization plan proposed in early 2009 by the debtors was supposed to be a compromise with its lenders. Pursuant to the plan, a newly-formed entity would acquire the shopping center for $105 million (plus additional consideration), which purchase price would likely be financed by the pre-petition lenders and other investors.

The $60 million investment by Tram Be is believed to allow him to be the majority stake holder of the shopping mall.


According to San Jose Business Journal, Cupertino Square has more than 1.2 million square feet of retail space situated on slightly more than 50 acres. The mall has four anchor tenants — three department stores and an 80,000-square-foot movie theater — plus more than 500,000 square feet of in-line shop space and a food court. Only about half the building area and 21 acres of land are owned by the debtors, however, with the balance of land and improvements owned by the department stores.