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State Atty. Gen. KamalaD. Harris is jumping into aheated battle over the pur-chase of six struggling non-profit Catholic medical cen-ters in California by the fast-growing Ontario hospitalchain Prime HealthcareServices Inc.

The sale of the nonprofitDaughters of Charity HealthSystem, which includes St.Vincent and St. Francismedical centers in Los Ange-les County, to profit-makingPrime requires Harris’ ap-proval.

Supporters and oppo-nents are gearing up to pro-mote their views at a seriesof public hearings that beginMonday in Lynwood and runthrough Friday.

Prime’s offer has the sup-port of Daughters of Charityand the California NursesAssn., a union that repre-sents 1,800 Daughters ofCharity nurses.

But the sale is hotly op-posed by the SEIU-United

Healthcare Workers West,the Roman Catholic chain’slargest union and a long-time, outspoken critic ofPrime’s business practices.

As part of the deal, Primeagreed to pay off more than$400 million of Daughters ofCharity’s tax-exempt bondsand other debt, and the com-pany would assume nearly$300 million of pension liabil-ity.

Prime also promised tokeep the six hospitals openfor at least five years. Thechain has said it would re-tain most of the hospitals’7,600 jobs but would makesome cutbacks in middlemanagement.

The attorney general’s office is holding hearings in each of the communitiesserved by the Daughters ofCharity hospitals: Los Ange-les, Lynwood, San Jose, Gil-roy, Moss Beach and DalyCity. A decision is expectedin early February.

Prime’s biggest obstacleis well-organized oppositionfrom SEIU-United Health-care Workers West, whichcontends that Prime putsprofit first at the expense ofpatient care.

The union has spentyears battling Prime, con-ducting public protests and

Bid to buy six hospitalsis scrutinized Deal would bolsterpensions and is backedby nurses union, butSEIU opposes it.

By Stuart Pfeifer

[See Healthcare, B4]

After making a chancy investmentto open a temporary storefront at theGrove mall this Christmas season,online retailer Revolve Clothingclicked open what it calls its bible anddid more than just pray for success.

For Revolve’s five-person market-ing team, the sacred text is an Excelspreadsheet listing nearly 100 con-sumers, most of them young women,who could make or break the bricks-and-mortar experiment.

High on the list was Chriselle Lim,29, of Manhattan Beach. A commit-ted Revolve fan, she immediately saidyes when asked to help promote thestorefront. Revolve paid for her Uberride to the store on a rainy day in earlyDecember and gave her credit to buya light-pink leather jacket and a cam-el-colored coat that had caught hereye online.

It was a great deal for Revolve:Lim blasted two photos of her Grovevisit onto Instagram, drawing morethan 12,000 “likes” combined.

A mix of attractive looks, a knackfor creativity and devotion to theirfans has brought Lim and each wom-an on the Revolve list thousands, ifnot hundreds of thousands, of sup-porters on social media. Many of thewomen treat their social media pagesas digital billboards, earning thou-sands of dollars a year — and in somecases more than $100,000 — by pro-moting the offerings of companies

Photographs by Christina House For The Times

A FASHION “influencer” who identified herself only as Mary tries on a dress at Revolve Clothing’s pop-upstore at the Grove mall in L.A. last month. The retailer recruited 50 influencers to help advertise the store.

TAPPING FASHION‘INFLUENCERS’ In a twist on conventional marketing and advertising, companiesrecruit social media standouts to promote products online

REVOLVE SCOURS the Web for social media stars. Above, fashioninfluencer Ann-Marie Hoang shops at the retailer’s Grove store.

CHRISELLE LIM, among those sought by Revolve, was given creditto buy a jacket and coat she saw while looking at the retailer’s website.

By Paresh Dave

[See Advertising, B2]

Housing economistswere nearly unanimous ayear ago: U.S. mortgagerates would rise in 2014 be-cause the Federal Reservewas unwinding a key eco-nomic stimulus that hadhelped keep long-term inter-est rates low.

But as the year passed,the Fed’s pull-back was over-shadowed by dormant infla-tion at home and slowingeconomies and rising politi-cal tensions elsewhere in theworld. Global appetite forsafe U.S. Treasury securitiesand government-backedmortgage bonds — as well assluggish demand for homeloans — pushed rates lower.

So instead of the yearending with 30-year mort-gage rates at 5%, as manyhad projected, it wound upat an average of 3.87%, ac-cording to housing financegiant Freddie Mac.

Estimates for where ratesgo this year seem less cer-tain.

Many prominent indus-try leaders, including thoseat the Mortgage BankersAssn., once again expectthem to end at about 5%.The trade group has peggedit at 5.1%.

But for many others,their forecasts now comewith more sheepish com-ments about clouded crystal

Will mortgagerates in 2015 holdmore surprises?They defied forecastslast year, staying lowdespite unwinding ofU.S. stimulus efforts.

By E. Scott Reckard

0

5

10

15

20%

1980 1990 2000 2010

Source: Freddie Mac

Los Angeles Times

Still lowA look at average rates for conventional 30-year mortgages over the years shows 2014 remained a year of bargains:

1972: 7.38%

2014: 4.17%

1981: 16.63%

[See Rates, B5]

Elena Naumanwanted a Dalma-tian. She has ownedthe spotted dogs atvarious times in herlife and was keen toadopt another.

Nauman, 59, andher husband triedgoing through vari-ous rescue organizations but withno luck. So when they saw an onlinelisting for “beautiful Dalmatianpups” on Christmas Day, they de-cided to go for it.

The San Clemente couple noware $500 poorer and considerablywiser.

“I was so excited, I didn’t ques-

tion anything,” Nauman told me. “Iwonder how many other peoplehave fallen for this scam.”

More than a few, it seems.“It’s not uncommon for us to

hear horror stories from people whotry to buy dogs online,” said MelanieKahn, senior director of the Hu-mane Society’s efforts to crackdown on so-called puppy mills. “It’svery important that people do theirhomework.”

The puppy scam that duped theNaumans is a variation of a rela-tively common racket involvingmoney transfers or prepaid cards.The basic idea is that the scammergets his hands on your cash and youget nothing.

The puppy scam can be espe-cially effective because it preys on

people’s emotions and clouds theirjudgment with promises of furrybundles of love.

“I should have seen red flagsfrom the beginning,” Nauman said.“But I didn’t.”

The listing on Recycler.com saida breeder in Long Beach had a litterof 10-week-old Dalmatians availablefor $500 each. Each pup came with abed, toys, food and a month’s worthof insurance.

Someone identifying himself asJames Clarkson responded to theNaumans’ email with a rambling,ungrammatical message statingthat the puppies “are very playfuland loves much attention and to bepampered.”

“Money is not the issue price canbe negotiable,” he wrote. “How

much can you offer?”Nauman wrote back to say how

excited she was and asked whethershe could visit Clarkson in LongBeach to see the puppies.

Clarkson’s next email said he wasin Mt. Shasta, not Long Beach, butoffered no explanation for the dis-crepancy. He said Nauman would berequired to make a down paymentof $200 and pay the remainder oncethe puppy arrived at her home via acourier service.

Nauman was hooked. She saidshe’d take two puppies and agreedto a down payment of $500, followedby a second $500 payment aftertheir arrival.

Clarkson instructed her to buy a$500 Reloadit prepaid card at a

DAVID LAZARUS

Scam leaves dog lovers poorer but wiser

[See Lazarus, B4]

Snapchat raises$485.6 millionThe L.A. companydiscloses investmentto cap a year ofsoaring valuations fortech start-ups. B2

Box office endsyear down 5.3%Films grossed about$10.3 billion in 2014versus a record $10.9billion in 2013. B3

Markets closedU.S. stock marketswere closed Thursdayfor New Year’s Day.

Dilbert.........................B2Company Town ........B3

Rise of a fashion‘influencer’A 26-year-old found eyes weredrawn to what he was wearing inblog and Instagram photos. B2

LABroadsheet_ 01-02-2015_ B_ 1_ B1_ LA_ 1_CMYKTSet: 01-01-2015 17:23