Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, July 31, 1996
Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, July 31, 1996
The new Ross Dress for Less stores will give the Redwood City, Calif.-based company six locations statewide, including four stores on Oahu and one in Kona and Maui. Terms of the deal, which will likely be completed in November, were not disclosed.
In a related development, Marshalls' parent, Framingham, Mass.-based TJX Companies Inc., said it plans to close its TJ Maxx retail outlet at the Stadium Market Place near Aloha Stadium on Aug. 24.
Ross currently operates stores at Pearlridge Center and the Windward City Mall on Oahu and has announced plans for a large outlet on Keeaumoku Street next year.
The Marshalls stores are located at the Hawaii Kai Towne Center, Ward Gateway Center and the Pearl Highlands Center. On the neighbor islands, Ross will take over the leases of the Marshalls in Kahului, Maui and at the Kona Coast Shopping Center on the Big Island.
Ross said it will interview all former Marshalls and TJ Maxx employees for job openings.
Sales were up but even without the one-time charge the profit would have been half what it was a year earlier, $1.5 million last quarter compared with $3 million a year ago, the company said today.
The builder of Oahu homes said it sold $29.8 million worth of new homes in the April-June period, up 11.2 percent from $26.8 million in the 1995 quarter. Schuler said it sold 145 homes and eight house lots in the latest quarter, compared with 137 homes and four lots in the year-earlier period.
As of June 30, the company had a backlog of 160 homes and nine lots under sales contracts in deals not yet closed, worth a total of $38.8 million.
The accounting change, under a national standard adopted by the company last year, altered the way the company values long-lived assets, particularly its inventory of completed but unsold homes, the financial report said. That resulted in a noncash debit item on the company's books of $14.6 million, after taxes.
The previously announced stock deal was valued at about $17.6 million as of June 30.
Pending regulatory approval, First Hawaiian plans in November to combine American National's four branches with five Pacific One Bank branches, with the combined entity called Pacific One Bank N.A.
First Hawaiian acquired the Pacific One branches last month. American National has assets of $71.2 million.
The Aloha Tower Development Corp., the state agency that oversees the waterfront project, yesterday granted a second extension to lender Mitsui Trust & Banking Co. to complete the sale of its $60 million mortgage on the property. Mitsui and borrower Aloha Tower Associates have declined to identify the buyer due to confidentiality agreements. But Mitsui has said it is close to completing the deal.
Mitsui, which financed the construction of the Honolulu Harbor retail and restaurant complex, filed a foreclosure suit against the developers earlier this month but has agreed to hold off on the suit due to the pending sale.
The changes, authorized yesterday, will replace a strict monitoring system used by the state.
The old system included restrictions on selling certain fish species according to season, minimum size and sales per day.
"These rules give the Department of Land and Natural Resources the green light to license aquaculture farms to raise fish such as moi and mullet for commercial markets," Cayetano said.
There are more than 100 aquaculture farms in Hawaii.