Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, August 27, 1998
CPB Inc. adopts plan to protect shareholders
Directors of CPB Inc., parent of Central Pacific Bank, have adopted a shareholders' rights plan designed to protect shareholders in case of a takeover bid, although the company said it knows of no such attempt.Chairman Joichi Saito said today that the move was a prudent step to protect the long-term value of shareholders' investment. Shareholders as of Sept. 16 will get the right to one new preferred share for each common share they hold.
They can exercise those rights if any person or group acquires 15 percent or more of the company's common stock or announces a tender offer for control.
The rights may also be exercised if anyone acquires 10 percent or more of the company and the directors determine the investor to be an "adverse person."
Thirty-year mortgages steady at 6.92 percent
WASHINGTON -- The benchmark U.S. mortgage rate stayed below 7 percent for a record 11th week in a row, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. said today.The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was unchanged at 6.92 percent this week, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey. The latest report also showed the average rate on an adjustable mortgage remained at 5.58 percent this week and the 15-year mortgage rate was also unchanged at 6.61 percent.
U.S. economic growth slows, curbing profits
WASHINGTON -- U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the April-June quarter as export sales to Asia slumped, but American corporations managed to eke out a small rise in profits anyway.The gross domestic product -- the sum of goods and services produced within U.S. borders -- increased at a seasonally adjusted 1.6 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said today. That's down from a torrid 5.5 percent rate during the first three months of the year.
Advance figures for the second quarter, released last month, had put growth at a slightly lower 1.4 percent rate, but the increase remained the smallest in three years.
In its first look at second-quarter profits, the Commerce Department said after-tax earnings rose 0.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $480.5 billion. But they were still 1.5 percent lower than a year earlier, the first year-to-year decline since 1989.
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
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