Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, October 29, 1997
First Hawaiian resumes stock buyback program
First Hawaiian Inc. said today it resumed its program of buying back some of its own shares at market prices. The parent of First Hawaiian Bank and a string of banks in Washington, Oregon and Idaho has purchased 1.1 million of its shares and has authority from its board to buy another 500,000.In a separate announcement, reacting to current turmoil in the currency and financial markets in Asia, First Hawaiian said it has virtually no exposure in the troubled areas.
First Hawaiian has less than $12 million in outstanding loans in those areas, one-tenth of 1 percent of its assets of $7.9 billion, said John Tsui, the holding company's president.
Adding Japan, considered financially stable, First Hawaiian's loans in all of Asia equal only 1.5 percent of its assets, Tsui said.
Oceanic Cable to start Oahu Internet service
Oceanic Cable on Monday begins hooking up Oahu customers to its new high-speed Internet access service.The company is scheduled to begin installations in the Central Oahu area and expects to offer the service to most of Oahu by March.
Cost is $39.95 monthly for Oceanic cable TV customers, $10 more for non-cable customers.
While about twice as costly as existing online services, Oceanic's so-called Road Runner will be much faster.
Information can be downloaded to personal computers up to 100 times faster, the company said. It also will free up a phone line because the Internet service is provided through Oceanic's fiber-optic network.
The new service was to be unveiled today at an Oceanic Internet computer expo at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall.
Hawaiian Electric OKs stockholder rights plan
Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. has adopted a stockholder rights plan that it said is designed to deter coercive or unfair takeover tactics. Those who hold shares on Nov. 10 will get the right to buy one-hundredth of a share of a special preferred stock.They can hold those rights and exercise them, at a price of $112 a share, if any person or group acquires 15 percent or more of HEI's common stock or launches a tender offer that would result in ownership of 15 percent or more.
The rights, to be distributed as a dividend, will cost shareholders nothing unless the shareholders exercise them.
AirTouch to borrow for stock repurchasing
SAN FRANCISCO -- AirTouch Communications Inc. said it plans to borrow as much as $1 billion to buy back its shares to give the stock more stability during stock market swings.Several big companies, led by International Business Machines Corp., yesterday announced expanded stock buybacks to take advantage of Monday's plunge in stock prices.
AirTouch, which provides wireless phone services, said its directors approved a plan to buy shares on the open market "from time to time."
The company approved the plan after watching its stock price rise and fall earlier this week, said spokeswoman Kathy Reinhart.