Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, September 24, 1998
Savio finalizes purchase of Queen Emma towers
Real estate executive Peter Savio has completed the purchase of two of the three towers at the Queen Emma Gardens apartment complex, opening the way to sell the individual apartments as condominium units.Savio's Queen Emma Gardens Development Co. paid $41.4 million to Pacific Century Trust, which represents the seller, the Black Memorial Trust. Savio, who first proposed the conversion two years ago, has now bought the King Tower and the Queen Tower and converted their 352 units into condominiums.
Pacific Century Trust said it will retain the third building, called the Prince Tower, and run its 235 units as rental for the Black Trust, whose main beneficiary is the Hawaii Community Foundation.
U.S. mortgage rates continue to decline
WASHINGTON -- The benchmark U.S. mortgage rate fell this week to the lowest level in more than three decades, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.64 percent this week from last week's 6.66 percent, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey.
This week's rate is the lowest since 1967, when the average 30-year mortgage rate was 6.38 percent, Freddie Mac said.
What's more, this marked the 15th week in a row the 30-year rate stayed below 7 percent, the longest stretch on Freddie Mac's records. The 30-year mortgage rate held below 7 percent for 10 weeks from August through October 1993.
The latest report also showed the average rate on an adjustable mortgage fell to 5.42 percent this week from 5.43 percent last week; and the 15-year mortgage rate fell to 6.32 percent from 6.35 percent.
NationsBank gets OK on BankAmerica merger
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Ignoring BankAmerica Corp.'s overseas trade losses and sinking U.S. bank stocks, NationsBank Corp. shareholders today overwhelmingly endorsed a merger with the San Francisco bank, creating the country's first coast-to-coast bank.Final results showed 72.7 percent of eligible NationsBank shares were cast in favor of the deal. Meeting at the same hour in San Francisco, BankAmerica shareholders were expected to follow their lead and also approve the merger, valued at $38 billion.
Operating under the Bank-America Corp. name, the new bank will move ahead of Chase Manhattan Corp. as the nation's largest commercial bank.
Fed bank oversees rescue of private fund
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York helped facilitate the rescue of a large private investment fund that nearly collapsed from losses on more than $90 billion invested in financial markets around the world.Chief executives and other top officials from 16 of the world's largest banks and brokerage firms spent six hours yesterday at the New York offices of the Fed hammering out a preliminary plan to provide more than $3.5 billion to shore up the Long-Term Capital Management LP fund, according to two sources. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
The central bank acted as a neutral observer, according to one of the sources. He stressed that no public money was involved in the plan, which was first reported in today's editions of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Asked about the matter today, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said, "We always have to be watchful with respect to anything that could affect our system, but I don't know of anything in this area that rises to that level at this time."
Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Conn., uses borrowed money to speculate in high-risk trades in global markets. It is run by John Meriwether, a former arbitrager at Salomon Brothers.
Russian inflation soars; worst still to come
MOSCOW -- Russian inflation has skyrocketed 67 percent since last month, and the Central Bank said today the worst was still ahead -- price hikes could approach 300 percent by year's end.Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov pledged strong steps to stabilize the crumbling economy, and for the first time since assuming office almost two weeks ago, he offered the outlines of a plan for combating the crisis.
Primakov said he'll pay wage arrears to workers and soldiers, offer compensation to offset the painful effects of inflation, and impose greater state control on the alcohol industry, a leading source of government tax revenue. But the government is broke and will almost certainly have to print more money to pay its debts, a move that's virtually certain to push inflation even higher.
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
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