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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Wednesday, October 25, 2000

Manoa company lands contract

Morningstar Inc. has picked Inovaware Corp., a start-up at the Manoa Innovation Center, to provide software to manage the investor information service's growing nationwide Internet subscriber base. Chicago-based Morningstar said yesterday it plans to use Inovaware's Prism software to support marketing efforts and develop a more complex billing and service packaging system. A 3-year-old Honolulu company, Inovaware recently opened a six-person sales office in Tokyo, following an agreement to provide Prism software to Japan-based NetTime, a wireless Internet provider. Inovaware has 50 employees in Hawaii and expects $8 million in sales this year, a 220 percent gain from $2.5 million in 1999.

BancWest to raise $300 million

BancWest Corp., owner of First Hawaiian Bank, has registered to sell $300 million in trust-preferred securities to get capital for general business purposes, the Securities & Exchange Commission said today.

The bank-holding company said it plans to offer the securities from its BancWest Capital I and BancWest Capital II trusts.

The company, which also owns Bank of the West in San Francisco, plans to use the money for general purposes, such as repayinging debt, investing in the two banks or financing potential acquisitions. Bill Atwater, general counsel for Honolulu-based BancWest, said the company would further specify what it will do with the money in a future filing.

Eagle outlets become Lowe's

Hawaii's two former Eagle Hardware & Garden stores -- at Waikele Center and Kahului, Maui -- have changed their names to Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse. Wilkesboro, N.C.-based Lowe's Companies Inc., bought the locations in a merger last year, and changed the names last week, the company said. The building-supply retailer is not making major structural changes to the two Hawaii outlets, but is restocking the stores with Lowe's and other brands, spokeswoman Suzanne McCoy said today. Lowe's said it has a total of 293 employees in Hawaii.