22 Firms to Strut Their Stuff at Growth Stock Conference : Investing: Small to mid-size companies hope to tweak the interest of institutional investors at the fifth annual event in Newport Beach.

IRVINE — Two years ago, the folks at Rainbow Technologies Inc. were looking to tweak the interest of institutional investors who might include their company’s stock in a large pool of mutual fund portfolios.

On Wednesday, the software manufacturer will be back at the annual Southern California Growth Stock Conference in Newport Beach with a new pitch: This time, the company is hoping to spread the news of a brand-new product that allows computer users to review software programs and games by modem before buying them.

“We want to present prospective clients with some new and interesting ways to make money,” said Patrick Fevery, Rainbow Technology’s chief financial officer.

Companies attending the Fifth Southern California Growth Stock Conference, sponsored by Newport Beach investment bank Cruttenden & Co., hope to do just that, company spokesman H.D. Thoreau said. For three days, about 200 institutional and independent investors from as far away as New England are scheduled to hear from 51 small to mid-sized companies. Most of the companies represented have annual sales ranging from $10 million to $50 million, although some larger companies, such as Armor All Products Corp. in Aliso Viejo, have sales that exceed $100 million a year.

But even the larger corporations find the conference useful. Ken Evans, chief executive of Armor All, which is participating for the second time, said that the conference definitely helped to boost the popularity of his company’s stock.

“Our trading average has increased since last year,” Evans said. “They put on a very professional conference. They draw a very upper-tier level of investors.”

The companies, which are picked by Cruttenden’s research analysts, are expected to give 20-minute presentations as well as show off their wares at booths.

Other sponsors include PR Newswire, an international press-relations wire service; Deloitte & Touche, one of the nation’s largest accounting and auditing firms; and Lathan & Watkins, an international corporate law firm.

About half of the companies making presentations this year are first-timers to the conference. The others were chosen to return because they either have exhibited strong stock growth in the past year or, like Rainbow Technologies, have new products to show.

Thoreau said the majority of companies represented are high-tech firms that sell computer or medical products. But there will also be a strong representation from the banking, real estate and consumer-product industries.

“These are very attractive companies,” Thoreau said. “They are smaller-capitalization companies that the big (investment) firms don’t follow or showcase so much.”

CorVel Corp., an Irvine-based medical services firm, falls neatly into that category.

Traded on the NASDAQ market since July, 1991, CorVel processes medical bill claims for insurance companies and acts as an advocate for patients in the workers’ compensation program. It generates annual sales of about $60 million.

The company has made investor presentations in the past on the East Coast. And as successful as CorVel has been, Chairman Gordon Clemens said, it is not well-known to either the public or the investment community in Southern California. That realization prompted Clemens to sign up for the Cruttenden conference.

“We felt that we don’t have any following in the local community, and I was feeling a little remiss,” Clemens said. “We’re looking to get a little more awareness in Orange County. We thought we’d give this a try.”

Brea-based Hansen Beverage Corp., which manufactures and distributes an increasingly popular line of natural soft drinks and juices, is also looking for some exposure to institutional investors.

For Hansen, however, the contact is much more critical. Although the company has been around for years, it didn’t go public until October and has yet to attend an investors’ conference.

Chief Executive Harold Taber said he and Chairman Rodney Sax will break the ice on Thursday morning, when the company gives a presentation outlining its goals for the years ahead.

“What we want to do is to be sure that investors understand we are not just a new product coming right out of the chute,” Taber said. “We have solid background.”

Other Orange County companies at the conference will be Furon Co. of Laguna Niguel, Aurora Electronics of Irvine, Emulex Corp. of Costa Mesa, Irvine Sensors Corp. of Costa Mesa, Comarco Inc. of Anaheim, Satellite Technology Management Inc. of Costa Mesa, Thrifty Tel Inc. of Garden Grove., Day Runner Inc. of Fullerton, Vans Inc. of Orange, PDA Engineering of Costa Mesa, State of the Art Inc. of Irvine, Fidelity National Financial Inc. of Irvine, Imperial Credit Industries of Newport Beach, Koll Management Services Inc. of Newport Beach, Plaza Home Mortgage Corp. of Santa Ana, ICU Medical Inc. of Irvine, Regency Health Services Inc. of Newport Beach and Safeguard Health Enterprises Inc. of Anaheim.