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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Tuesday, October 31, 2000

OfficeMax plans to scale back

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- OfficeMax Inc., an office-supplies retailer whose stock has lost half its value this year, said it will close or relocate as many as 50 stores and scale back expansion plans next year.

The company is planning to offer transfers to workers affected by the closings. The location of the stores that may be closed was not disclosed. Each employs about 35 to 40 people. OfficeMax also will open fewer than 54 stores in fiscal 2001, less than the amount it expects to open this year. The company has two Oahu stores, and one each in Kahului and Hilo. OfficeMax, with about 1,000 U.S. stores, is the third-largest office-supply chain, after Office Depot Inc. and Staples Inc.

Delta offers pilots industry-leading deal

ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines Inc. said today it offered its pilots an eight-year contract with a 17.5 percent average initial wage increase, which would make the pilots the highest-paid in the industry.

The No. 3 U.S. airline has been in contract talks with the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents its 9,000 pilots, for more than a year, but the union only recently put a complete package of proposals on the table for all contract sections, including compensation.

Actual increases would depend on aircraft type. Based on 78 flight hours a month, an MD-88 captain currently earning $163,800 annually would jump to $195,500 at contract signing, Delta said. A Boeing 777 captain earning $248,000 annually would jump to $267,000. The company's proposal includes a performance-based compensation formula. Beyond the initial increases, rate adjustments would occur every two years based on pilot and company performance.

In other news . . .

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Shares of Rambus Inc., which licenses patents for computer chips, fell as much as 31 percent this morning after Electronic Buyers' News reported that Intel Corp. will stop using some Rambus memory chips. The stock recovered somewhat to close today at $44.94, down $8.50 from yesterday.