Nimitz warehouse put on market for $5 million

The Otani family has listed a 32,000-square-foot warehouse at 345 Nimitz Highway for sale at $5 million fee simple.

The building is on a 1.19-acre portion of a circular block in the middle of the highway, between Chinatown and Iwilei. The warehouse is mostly vacant. The Jiroichi Otani Family LP bought the mixed-use property for $5.8 million at the end of 1997, records show. Joseph C. Leonardo & Co. has the listing. Otani also owns a smaller parcel on the same block, but that is not up for sale.

Japan jobless rate hits record 5.5 percent

Tokyo >> Japan's jobless rate rose to its highest in nearly half a century, as Oji Paper Co., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and others try to ride out a 14-month-old recession by cutting payrolls.

The jobless rate rose to 5.5 percent last month from 5.4 percent in October, the government said. One million heads of households lost their jobs in November, also a record.

A separate report showed rising unemployment didn't dent spending last month. Still, as more breadwinners find themselves without work, consumer spending, which makes up 55 percent of the economy, is likely to fall, dragging on the economy further.

Oji Paper, Japan's second-largest papermaker, plans more than 5,000 job cuts, it said this week, while Matsushita Electric, the largest consumer-electronics maker, will pay 10,000 staff up to two-and-a-half-years' severance to leave their jobs.

In November the number of people out of work rose to 3.7 million, seasonally adjusted, the most since records were first kept in 1953. The number of people who were fired rose a record 290,000 from a year ago to 1.23 million.

Online shopping growth beats 2001 forecasts

ATLANTA >> The 2001 holiday season was dismal for most traditional retailers, but it may be remembered as the time when e-commerce firmly established itself as a shopping option.

Online sales increases met or exceeded expectations despite recession, war and lingering consumer concerns over Internet purchases.

"It was a pretty incredible season overall," said Leslie Barry, spokeswoman for BizRate.com, an online researcher and comparison shopping site.

Online sales totaled $6.43 billion from Nov. 19 through Christmas Day, up 36 percent from last year's $4.74 billion. That beat BizRate's forecast of a 31 percent hike.

U.S. Department of Commerce sales figures for the period aren't yet available, and industry sales estimates vary because data is gathered in different ways. But analysts and company executives agree that for e-tailers, it was a robust Christmas.

Samsung execs fined for mismanagement

SEOUL >> In a landmark ruling, a South Korean court has ordered 10 executives from Samsung Electronics Co. to pay $73.5 million back to the company for mismanaging its affairs.

The decision handed down yesterday marked the first time that South Korean business executives were held legally responsible for mismanagement, which has caused serious financial losses to South Korean companies and shareholders.

It was also a victory for civic groups, which have waged a vigorous campaign to end widespread illegal business practices among family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebol, such as cross-funding and internal trading.

People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a Seoul-based citizen's group, hailed the ruling. The group led 22 minor Samsung shareholders in 1998 to sue the electronics giant, accusing it of illegal internal trading. It demanded that the company's chairman, Lee Kun-hee, and 10 other executives pay $264 million back to the company.

In other news ...

Seoul >> South Korean consumer prices unexpectedly rose in December on higher food and housing costs, easing pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates to boost spending. Consumer prices climbed a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent from November, the National Statistical Office said. That followed a 0.5 percent decline in November. Prices rose 3.2 percent from a year ago, slowing from a 3.4 percent gain in November. Economists had forecast a 0.1 percent month-on-month drop in December.

NEW YORK >> There's a new king among Wall Street underwriters, as Citigroup Inc.'s Salomon Smith Barney unit dethroned Merrill Lynch & Co. to become the top U.S. bank that companies called on to sell their stock and bonds. Salomon handled $486.2 billion of business, or 12 percent of the $4.1 trillion total worldwide in 2001, according to preliminary data from market research firm Thomson Financial Securities Data. Merrill underwrote $431.6 billion.