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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, November 17, 2000

Marriott completes hotel deal

Marriott photo
Under new ownership, the former Hawaiian Regent Hotel
is now the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort. Marriott
International Inc. completed its $125.5 million purchase
of the 1,304-room hotel yesterday and said all 516 hourly
employees and most of the management have been rehired.
Marriott said it plans substantial renovations. The seller
was Otaka LP, which acquired the hotel in 1986. Opened
in 1971, the hotel consists of two high-rise towers.

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A&B stock up 11%, hits 52-week high

Shares of Alexander & Baldwin Inc. rose 11 percent today to a 52-week high on heavy volume. The stock rose $2.75 to close at $27.25 with 227,300 shares traded, nearly three time the average daily volume of 75,352 shares over the last six months, according to Bloomberg News. Today's close gives the stock a 19 percent gain for the year to date. An A&B executive had no comment on the stock's movement and there were no announcements from the company. However, a posting on an Internet stock message board said the company was mentioned on a report today on CNBC, the cable TV business news network.

Isle water company pares quarterly loss

Hawaiian Natural Water Co. lost $314,314, or 4 cents a share, in its third quarter, a small improvement over a loss of $387,324, or 9 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Sales of $945,000 in the latest three months were up 2 percent from $930,000 in the year-earlier period, the company said in a report filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The company bottles and sells spring water from beneath Mauna Loa on the Big Island and runs a purified-water home and office supply business in Kona. Hawaiian Natural is being acquired by Nebraska-based Amcon Distributing Co. in an exchange of shares. They expect to conclude the deal by March 31.

30-year mortgages slip to 7.73 percent

WASHINGTON - The average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages slipped to 7.73 percent this week, down from 7.79 percent last week, according to mortgage brokerage Freddie Mac. Fifteen-year mortgages fell to an average 7.41 percent this week from 7.44 percent last week. One-year, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged an initial rate of 7.25 percent, up from 7.23 percent the week before.

In other news . . .

BRAMPTON, Ontario - Nortel Networks Corp. shares fell sharply today after an analyst said the firm is losing sales to a competitor and that WorldCom Inc. has stockpiles of its fiber-optic equipment, which may curb future sales.