Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, April 3, 1997
WASHINGTON -- Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgage rates jumped to 8.18 percent from 7.97 percent last week, according to a national survey released today by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Mortgage rates top 8%
for first time since Oct.Freddie Mac said the increase was in response to the Federal Reserve's decision to raise the overnight bank lending rate. It was the first time the average rate topped 8 percent since October, Bloomberg News said.
In its survey, the government-sponsored Freddie Mac also found that the average one-year adjustable mortgage rate rose to 5.80 percent, up from 5.71 percent from last week. Fifteen-year mortgage rates averaged 7.70 percent, also up from last week's 7.48 percent.
The Public Utilities Commission has granted Hawaii Electric Light Co. a nearly 5 percent rate increase, but Big Island ratepayers won't see their bills going up. Isle electric bills
to stay put, PUC rulesThat's because the approved rate is identical to the interim increase the state commission authorized in March 1996.
In that decision, the PUC gave the utility permission to temporarily raise rates enough to generate more than $6.8 million in additional revenue.
Helco in 1995 requested an increase of more than $8.8 million, but the commission's order yesterday only makes permanent the interim rate. It also set 9.34 percent as a fair rate of return, less than the 9.76 percent sought by the company but more than the 8.65 percent recommended by the state consumer advocate's office.
The inaugural Global Partners Forum on April 14-16 at the East-West Center in Honolulu will feature business and government leaders speaking on the challenges facing the Pacific region in the 21st century. East-West Center,
UCLA host Asia-Pacific forumMore than 200 people are expected to attend the forum presented in partnership with the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Participants include: Mickey Kantor, former U.S. secretary of commerce; David Murdock, chairman and chief executive officer, Dole Food Co. and Castle & Cooke Inc.; Alan Lai, director general of trade for Hong Kong; Kenneth Brown, board chairman of the Queen's Health Systems; and Il SaKong, chairman and chief executive officer of the Institute for Global Economics and South Korea's former minister of finance. Gov. Ben Cayetano and former Gov. George Ariyoshi also will speak.
Registration fee is $500 a person, or $400 for UCLA and East-West Center alumni. To register, call 310-825-7995.
NEW YORK -- Apple Computer Inc. is looking for a friendly merger partner, according to several executives close to the company, the New York Times reported today. Report: Apple looking for
merger partnerOne executive who does business with Apple said Apple employees told him the company was again in talks with Sun Microsystems Inc., the paper said.
Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison confirmed on March 27 he had formed an independent investor group to gauge interest in taking over Apple.
CHICAGO -- Trans World Airlines Inc., which owes the San Francisco International Airport nearly $1 million in fees, will be notified next week that its lease will be terminated unless payment is received, an airport spokesman said. TWA in danger of
losing lease at S.F. airport"It is our intention to send a 30-day notice ... that we will start termination procedures of their lease," said Ron Wilson, a spokesman for the airport.
He said St. Louis-based TWA owes about $980,000 for landing fees and space rental, and has not made a payment to the airport since early February.