P.O., Los Angeles Prepares to Embrace New Tech Millionaires - LOS ANGELES — Blaine Lourd has long helped the movie stars, professional athletes and heiresses in Los Angeles manage their wealth. “When it comes to tech companies, for the wealth managers and real estate guys, no one has really rung the register like the Snap thing that’s about to happen” to Los Angeles, said Mr. Lourd, whose wealth management firm, LourdMurray, is based in Beverly Hills. “It will be amazing to see the tech industry take off,” said Lee LeGrande, a residential real estate agent at LeGrande Beach Homes, which sells property in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. Howard Rowen, a financial adviser at Bank of America in Los Angeles who manages money for entrepreneurs and tech workers, said techies who made fortunes at a start-up might think they would hit the jackpot again. “It’s not Northern California, but there is a real phenomenon.” The Snap public offering portends future wealth for venture investors in Los Angeles as well. That would make Snap among the biggest public tech companies by market capitalization to have its headquarters in the Los Angeles area. Next month, Snap, the parent company of the disappearing-message app Snapchat, which is based in the Venice neighborhood, is set to go public — and in the process mint a wave of tech millionaires and billionaires in a city better known for its well-paid Hollywood stars. “What we have not had is our Google moment,” Mr. Lourd said, referring to Google’s initial public offering in 2004, which produced a horde of new millionaires in Silicon Valley.
