Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Aquaculture firm harvesting shrimp
Hawaii-based Ceatech USA Inc. said it has begun its first commercial harvesting of shrimp grown in ponds at Kekaha, Kauai, and results are meeting its projections. The company has 10 one-acre ponds and six half-acre ponds in production and is nearing the end of construction for another 10 one-acre ponds on the 85-acre site it leases from the state, said Ernest K. Dias, president and chief operating officer.The aquaculture company went public in August and its shares are traded on the over-the-counter bulletin board system.
Cheap Tickets prices initial stock offering
Cheap Tickets Inc. says it hopes shares in its upcoming initial public offering will sell for $11 to $13 apiece. The Honolulu-based company said in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing that it expects to raise $38.3 million from the sale of 3.5 million shares. The company said the money would be used mostly for advertising and brand development, while $9 million will go into developing its technical infrastructure and $4.8 million will be used to redeem preferred stock, Bloomberg News reported.The underwriters, William Blair & Co. in Chicago and Dain Rauscher Wessels in Minneapolis, have not set a date for the sale. After the sale, Cheap Tickets will have 20.9 million shares outstanding, with 16.7 percent of them in public hands.
Cheap Tickets expects to trade on the Nasdaq market under the symbol CTIX.
Founded in 1986 and headed by former airline executive Michael J. Hartley and his wife Sandra, the company sells airline tickets through call centers in Hawaii and on the mainland and through the Internet. It reported selling 963,000 tickets last year.
In other news . . .
SEATTLE -- Starbucks Corp. has announced a 2-for-1 stock split.
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