Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, August 27, 1999

City Mill to open eighth Hawaii store

City Mill Co. is opening a Waianae store, its eighth in Hawaii.

The company said the grand opening for the approximately 40,000-square-foot store in the Waianae Mall will be Sept. 4.

With the new store, City Mill will become one of the largest employers on the Waianae Coast. It has hired about 50 people to run the store. The opening comes as City Mill celebrates 100 years in business in Hawaii.

Roberts to add 30 buses to fleet

Roberts Tours & Transportation Inc., Hawaii's largest tourism transportation company, is adding 30 buses to its fleet by December, at a cost of more than $12 million. Robert Iwamoto Jr., president of parent Roberts Hawaii Inc., said he was so confident in the future of Hawaii's tourism that he is considering options to buy 30 more buses next year. Roberts' bus fleet currently totals 225.

Spending, incomes rising in nation

WASHINGTON -- Consumer spending, a driving force behind the U.S. economy, accelerated in July as incomes rose for a seventh straight month, government figures showed. Spending increased 0.4 percent in July after an unrevised gain of 0.3 percent a month earlier, the Commerce Department said. Incomes grew 0.2 percent in July after an unrevised increase of 0.7 percent in June, Bloomberg News reported.

In other news . . .

Commercial Credit offices on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island will change their name to CitiFinancial on Sept. 7.

DULLES, Va. -- CompUSA Inc. and America Online Inc. today announced a marketing alliance under which CompUSA will sell computers with a custom keyboard that has a key for connecting directly to AOL.

BOSTON -- George Brown, founder and CEO of brokerage Brown & Co., resigned from the Chase Manhattan Corp. unit over disagreements on bank strategy and will form his own deep-discount brokerage.

NEW YORK -- Merrill Lynch & Co. said bearish chief strategist Charles Clough will leave at year-end.