Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Tuesday, November 28, 2000

Aquasearch hires consulting firm

Aquasearch Inc. said today it has signed an arrangement with a California-based investor relations and consulting firm, Western Financial Communications Inc., to help with its investor relations and to propose business development and partnering strategies.

Jeffrey Weaver, president and chief executive of Western Financial, said his firm will work to get Aquasearch national visibility and to attract investors. Aquasearch, trading on the over-the-counter bulletin board, is a Kona-based marine biotechnology business that develops products from algae.

Cheap Tickets offers e-tickets

Honolulu-based Cheap Tickets Inc., a national seller of discount travel, said today it has introduced electronic ticketing. Callers to its reservations number, 1-800-652-4327, can now get their airline tickets by presenting identification at the check-in counter, the company said. Cheap Tickets sells tickets through the Internet, 12 retail offices across the country and telephone call centers in Honolulu, Colorado and California. Tickets said the arrangement is convenient for last-minute travelers. Sam Galateos, Cheap Tickets president and CEO, said the company sells about 60 percent of its tickets through the call centers.

Broadcom buying Israel chipmaker

IRVINE, Calif. -- Broadcom Corp., moving to expand its product offerings for television set-top boxes, will acquire chipmaker VisionTech Ltd. The goal, Broadcom said, is to create a more flexible, inexpensive product for personal video recording-enabled set-top boxes. Under the deal, announced yesterday, Broadcom will pay 7.96 million of its Class A shares for VisionTech, or about $777 million.

Personal video recording allows viewers to freeze a live television program, instantly replay or rewind the program being watched, and skip ahead in a recorded program. VisionTech, based in Herzliya, Israel, makes the chips that let set-top boxes offer video recording, interactive videoconferencing and Internet-protocol video streaming services.