Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Monday, September 27, 1999
Airport bonds' rating trails previous issue
Hawaii state airport system revenue bonds worth $294 million, due to be sold next week, received a slightly lower rating than $300 million worth of general obligation bonds that the state sold Sept. 16.Fitch IBCA, a leading international bond-rating organization, today gave the airport bonds an "A" rating. Fitch had given the general obligation bonds a "AA-minus" rating, two grades above "A".
A spokesman in the Fitch office in San Francisco said the airport system's lower rating was based in part on a slowdown of airport traffic from Asia and a drop in business at the duty-free shops. The airport bonds will be sold by negotiation through a syndicate led by Merrill Lynch & Co. Bond ratings affect how much the state has to pay in interest. The earlier issue went for an average of 5.5 percent, which the state called profitable.
Heinz plans to invest $100 million in Hain
PITTSBURGH -- H.J. Heinz & Co. agreed to buy a 19.5 percent stake in Hain Food Group Inc., the largest U.S. maker of health foods, for about $100 million in cash to gain a foothold in the surging U.S. natural-food industry.Heinz, the world's largest ketchup maker, will buy 3.5 million Hain shares at a slight premium to Hain's closing stock price of $28.44 on Friday. At exactly $100 million, the price would come to $28.57 a share.
Hain shares fell $2.37 to close at $26.06 in Nasdaq trading, after sinking to a low of $25, on dashed hopes that the company was planning to sell itself outright, Bloomberg News reported.
Huffy to stop making bicycles in U.S.
DAYTON, Ohio -- Huffy Corp. will stop making bicycles in the United States, closing its two U.S. plants by year's end. Huffy cited a decline in prices for Chinese-made bicycles over the past six months for the closures announced today. It planned to continue making bicycles with partners around the world. There are a total of 600 jobs at the two plants -- 440 at Farmington, Mo., and 160 at Southhaven, Miss.