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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Monday, September 11, 2000

Kapiolani building put on the block

A member of the Watumull family has put the 51,217-square-foot J. Watumull Building on the block for $8 million, after purchasing it for $6.7 million in 1997.

The sale includes 37,300 square feet of fee-simple land. The seller, Gulu Watumull, had planned to attract tenants with a $1 million renovation, including new elevators, paint and air-conditioning, but did not follow through, said Steve Sofos, the property's agent. The three-story concrete building next to Ala Moana Center has 50 parking stalls and is 40 percent occupied by tenants including China House Restaurant and Club Julianna Bar & Nightclub.

The Kapiolani property is available for residential and commercial use, or a mixture of both, and can be rebuilt up to 350 feet high.

Hewlett-Packard may buy consultancy

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co. is in discussions to buy accounting firm PricewaterhouseCooper's technology consulting practice as it moves to beef up services to corporate clients who buy its most expensive computers.

Executives at Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP cautioned in a statement today that unspecified "significant issues" remain to be resolved before a deal is closed, but said the potential cash-and-stock acquisition would cost as much as $18 billion.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and other top accounting firms have been under pressure in recent months by the Securities & Exchange Commission to divest their consulting operations. The government argues providing both consulting and accounting to some of the same clients represents a conflict of interest.

In other news . . .

TOKYO -- Japan's economy expanded at a robust 4.2 percent annual pace in the three months to June, logging a second quarter of convincing growth as the nation toiled to emerge from its worst postwar downturn. Gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services produced within the country, grew a real 1.0 percent in the April-June period from the previous quarter, the Economic Planning Agency said today.