Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, September 12, 1997

State orders
marketing firm to stop

State securities commissioner Russel Yamashita has issued a cease and desist order against GMG Global Marketing Group which he says operated an illegal offshore credit card and pyramid scheme.

The order also names Eric Christian Ralls and River Oaks Ltd. The state Securities Enforcement Unit determined that the scheme originated in Arizona and was spread via the Internet and multilevel marketing memberships, Yamashita said.

More than 1,000 Hawaii residents were solicited, he said.

Ralls has been arrested and charged in Arizona with fraud and theft in connection with the scheme which allegedly collected more than $1.5 million in two months, Yamashita said.

The companies offered unsecured credit cards regardless of financial history, asking a $100 fee to qualify for the card and $25 a month to use it, he said.

Applicants also were encouraged to recruit others and make money from their recruitment, Yamashita said. According to Cayman Islands' officials, where applicants sent their money, no credit cards were issued and none of the money returned. -- Associated Press

Washington business
opens isle subsidiary

Pathways Group Inc., a Woodville, Wash.-based business that develops electronic transactions systems, has formed a Hawaii subsidiary with offices on Fort Street Mall. The company named Honolulu businessman David Mayeda as Hawaii regional manager and former city clerk Eileen Lota as head of new business development in the islands.

Pathways, traded on the over-the-counter bulletin board, sells custom designed software and hardware for electronic banking transactions and smart cards, such as shoppers' cards that allow retailers to collect electronically from customers' prepaid deposits.

Anti-snoring company
plans stock offering

NEW YORK -- Somnus Medical Technologies Inc. is taking its battle against snoring public.

The anti-snoring device maker filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today for an initial public offering of its stock. The move comes less than two months after the Food and Drug Administration approved its technology to shrink the tissues blocking the air passages of troubled sleepers. The procedure has only been approved to treat snoring, but it can also be used to treat a more serious ailment, sleep apnea, a recurrent halting of breath that can wake sufferers repeatedly or, rarely, suffocate them.

Apple's new board
meets on CEO search

The search for a new chief executive topped the agenda when Apple Computer's board of directors met yesterday for the first time since being overhauled last month.

At a meeting on Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus, a corporate headhunter gave the board a list of candidates to replace Gil Amelio, who was ousted in July.

The six-member board will forward the names to an executive search committee -- co-founder Steve Jobs, Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison, Apple Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson and Edgar Woolard Jr., chairman of E.I. du Pont de Nemours.

The San Francisco Chronicle quoted a source close to the committee as saying that a new CEO won't be named for at least several weeks. A spokeswoman for Apple would not comment.