Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, June 27, 1997

Hawaii businesses
headed for Korea

Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono will lead a Hawaii tourism trade mission, including 21 local companies, to Korea next week.

The 40-member delegation will visit Seoul and Pusan July 1-8, and will participate in the Korean Association of Travel Agents Congress and the Korea World Travel Fair trade show,

The delegation also includes Rick Egged, deputy director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, and Kaz Tamura, Asia-Pacific vice president for the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Maui's Sunsource sold,
moving to mainland

A Tennessee company has concluded its purchase of Sunsource International Inc., a maker of dietary supplements, and will move the Maui company to the mainland. The company, at Maui Research and Technology Park, employs about 30 and only a few will go with it, Steve Leftkowitz, Sunsource's director of marketing, said today.

Chattem Inc., based in Chattanooga, Tenn., bought Sunsource and worldwide rights to its products, including the Garlique, Rejuvex and Melatonex brands, for an undisclosed amount in a deal first announced in May.

The company said the price at closing is about equal to Sunsource's annual sales, which were about $25 million last year. Other performance-based payments could lift the price to 1.5 times sales, or about $37.5 million, over the next six years. Chattem, with revenues of $119 million last year, makes health and beauty care products.

TCI-Hawaii's parent
seeks to reduce debt

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Tele-Communications Inc. may not be the nation's biggest cable company for long.

Leo Hindery, TCI's president, has unveiled a strategy to shed 4 million of the company's 14 million subscribers to help reduce its debt of about $14.4 billion. That would place it behind the nation's No. 2 cable company, Time Warner Inc., which has about 12 million subscribers.

TCI is the parent company of TCI-Hawaii, the state's second-largest cable TV provider with about 40,000 subscribers. Time Warner is the parent of the state largest cable provider Oceanic Cablevision, which has about 245,000 customers.

TCI's effort to reduce debt will come through partnerships with cable providers that dominate their markets, Hindery said yesterday. TCI was not specific about the partnerships, aside from saying it expects to form eight of them by September.

Hilton Hotels extends
offer for ITT to Aug. 1

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Hilton Hotels Corp. extended its $55-a-share cash tender offer for 50.1 percent of ITT Corp. for the fifth time, Bloomberg News reported.

The offer, for about 122.7 million ITT shares, was extended to Aug. 1 from today. About 1.3 million ITT shares have been tendered in the offer. Hilton has repeatedly extended its offer in its hostile battle for ITT and its Sheraton hotel chain and Caesars World casinos because ITT hasn't set a date for a shareholders meeting to vote on the offer.