CB Bancshares posts regular dividend

CB Bancshares Inc., parent of City Bank, said it will pay a quarterly dividend of 11 cents a share March 28 to shareholders of record March 15. The amount is unchanged from the dividend of the two preceding quarters but up 21 percent from the dividend of 9.1 cents paid a year ago.

The bank has $1.6 billion in assets and 21 branches in Hawaii, on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island.

Citibank settles over telemarketing issues

MILWAUKEE >> Citibank, the nation's largest credit-card issuer, has agreed to pay $1.6 million as part of a settlement with 27 states, including Hawaii, over the way telemarketing firms sell products and services to the banking company's customers.

The agreement announced yesterday settles a two-year investigation led by attorneys general in California, Illinois, New York and Vermont. The states were looking into customer complaints about the marketing practices of telemarketing firms contracted by Citibank.

New York-based Citibank admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. But as part of the settlement, Citibank said it will pay $1.6 million to the states for investigative costs or consumer education programs.

Kawamoto extends period for eviction, report says

Japanese real estate billionaire Gensiro Kawamoto, under fire in Northern California for giving nearly 600 residents 30 days to leave their homes, has agreed to extend the eviction period to 90 days, the Sacramento Bee reported today.

Legal Services of Northern California had sued to block the evictions, and Kawamoto had previously agreed to delay action until a court hearing March 20. The Sacramento and Santa Rosa renters are living on month-to-month leases, and Kawamoto was within the law when he delivered the 30-day eviction notices, but the Japanese investor still caused on uproar for dumping the tenants into an already tight rental market.

Prompted by the outcry, California lawmakers have been pushing an emergency proposal to extend the notice for all mass evictions to 90 days.

Kawamoto also has given notice to Hawaii tenants. Whether the extension will apply to them was unclear.

30-year mortgage rates remain below 7 percent

WASHINGTON >> Rates for 30-year mortgages dipped again this week, staying below the 7 percent mark for the fourth week in a row, and one-year adjustable rate mortgages fell to their lowest level since 1994, according to a nationwide survey released today.

Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported that the average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages edged down to 6.80 percent, down from 6.81 the previous week. A year ago this time, 30-year mortgages averaged 7.03 percent. Rates on 30-year mortgages hit a low of 6.45 percent in early November, their lowest point since Freddie Mac began conducting its nationwide survey in 1971.

While rates have moved higher since that time, analysts believe that rates this year will be fairly stable, remaining close to the record lows set last year and will continue to support the housing market.

Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, held steady at 6.28 percent, unchanged from the week before. A year ago, 15-year mortgages averaged 6.58 percent.

On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 4.94 percent, down from 4.96 percent the previous week, and the lowest level since the week ending April 1, 1994. Last year this time, one-year ARMs averaged 6.39 percent.

These rates do not include add-on fees known as points, which averaged about 0.7 percent of the loan amount for all three types of mortgages last week.

BOJ increases monthly bond purchases

TOKYO >> The Bank of Japan will increase the amount of government bonds it buys each month by a quarter, to $7.5 billion, and urged the government to speed the disposal of bad debt and reform taxes to revive the economy, Bloomberg News reported. The bank sent a message to the government that it must do more to end 2 1/2 years of price declines that are eating into company earnings .

P&O may resubmit Royal Caribbean plans

LONDON >> P&O Princess Cruises Plc may resubmit its $7.4 billion merger with Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. to shareholders before regulatory probes into its proposal and an offer from Carnival Corp. are completed, the Financial Times reported, without citing sources. Earlier this month, P&O shareholders voted to delay approval of the merger to consider a $5.4 billion bid from No. 1 cruise line Carnival, Bloomberg News reported.

P&O Princess and Carnival have been in a battle for dominance of the $15 billion-a-year cruise industry. P&O Princess, the No. 3 cruise line, has rejected four offers from Carnival, which wants to buy its smaller U.K. rival to remain the world's biggest cruise line.

The U.K. Competition Commission will probably publish its opinion in May, the FT said.