Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Friday, November 13, 1998
Waldenbooks comes to Ala Moana Center
Waldenbooks plans to open a store at Ala Moana Center on Sunday, at the location of the former Honolulu Book Shops.The grand opening event will include book signings, children's stories, and entertainment. The new store, one of 12 Waldenbooks in Hawaii, will offer newspapers from around the world, discounted best sellers and other customer incentives, the company said.
Honolulu Book Shops closed in August after more than 50 years in business. The company liquidated in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy after struggling with big mainland retailers Borders Books, Music & Cafe and Barnes & Noble Booksellers. Waldenbooks is a subsidiary of Borders Group Inc.
Kailua bank makes way for shops
Hawaii National Bank will close its Kailua branch next Friday and reopen in a nearby location. The branch, at the corner of Kailua Road and Hahani Street, will be torn down to make room for the Kailua Village Shops, a planned shopping mall with 8,400 square feet of retail space, including a Starbucks coffee shop. Opening Nov. 21, the new bank branch will be in the building formerly occupied by American Savings Bank, at the Hahani Street end of the Safeway parking lot, behind the Wallace Theatre complex.
theglobe.com's IPO is out of this world
NEW YORK -- Shares of theglobe.com Inc., a so-called online community that lets people set up free personal Web pages, skyrocketed today in the hottest initial public offering in U.S. history.The New York-based company's stock debuted at $87, an 866 percent premium to its $9 initial offering price. The stock hit an early high of $97, but closed at $63.50 on a volume of 15.6 million shares on the Nasdaq. Offering visitors free home pages, chat rooms, e-mail and an electronic marketplace, the theglobe.com was founded in 1995 by Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot in their Cornell University dorm room.
Two reports raise doubts on rate cut
WASHINGTON -- U.S. retail sales rose in October at the fastest pace in five months and producer prices crept higher, leading some economists to predict Federal Reserve policy-makers may refrain from cutting interest rates next week."The economy's stronger than we thought," said Gary Thayer, an economist at brokerage A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. "The Fed's going to think the urgency for a rate cut isn't there."
Retail sales rose 1.0 percent in October -- twice the pace expected by forecasters. Producer prices rose 0.2 percent in October.
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
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