Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Tuesday, September 2, 1997

Outrigger to manage
second Polynesian hotel

Outrigger Hotels & Resorts has agreed to manage its second hotel in French Polynesia, the 90-room Outrigger Bora Bora Resort.

The hotel is being built at the edge of the lagoon near Vaitape, the main town on the island of Bora Bora and is expected to open in the first quarter of 1999.

The hotel will have its own dock, to receive customers via a short boat ride from Bora Bora's airport, said Perry Sorenson, Outrigger chief operating officer.

It is being developed by Louis Wayne, owner and developer of the Outrigger Hotel Tahiti, the other Outrigger-managed property in French Polynesia. That hotel, on the island of Tahiti, is also schedule to open early in 1999.

Apple to pay $100 mil
for Mac cloner's assets

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. is buying key assets of Macintosh clone maker Power Computing Corp. for $100 million, neutralizing some of the competition that has eaten into Apple's sales and giving the company new expertise selling machines directly to the public.

Apple, in a deal announced today, is getting back the license that allows Power Computing to sell Macintosh-based machines. Power Computing, a successful and highly visible maker of Macs, will stop selling the clones at the end of the year and instead make clones of machines using Windows operating software.

"Power Computing has pioneered direct marketing and sales in the Macintosh market, successfully building a $400 million business," said Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who has been leading the company while it looks for a new chief executive officer.

Power Computing, the first company Apple allowed to make Mac clones, has been embroiled in a messy licensing dispute with Apple over how much it will pay to keep making the machines. Apple has been rethinking its decision to let other companies copy the Mac. Apple is using its stock to pay for the purchase.

The Power Computing name will remain independent of Apple. The company earlier had said it was considering making clones of computers that run Microsoft's Windows software.

Top cigarette makers
boost prices 7.6%

NEW YORK -- Philip Morris Cos. and RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. boosted wholesale cigarette prices an average of 7.6 percent as they seek billions of dollars to settle health-related lawsuits, Bloomberg News repoted.

Retail prices will increase about 7 cents a pack effective today, analysts said they were told by the companies. Loews Corp., B.A.T Industries Plc's Brown & Williamson and Brooke Group Ltd.'s Liggett also raised their prices, analysts said.

The increase, the largest since March 1993, will generate about $1.7 billion a year. That's enough to either make the first settlement payments to Florida and Mississippi or fund a proposed $368.5 billion national settlement.