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HAWAII
Agency to lionize business leaders

The U.S. Small Business Administration, aiming to reward efforts to boost local companies, is seeking nominees for its 2005 Small Business Awards.

The awards will include Small Business Person of the Year and individual SBA Champion Awards. This year, the SBA named Randy Finlay and Peter Robson of Unlimited Construction Services Inc. on Kauai as the top small business in the state.

The deadline to submit forms is Nov. 12. Forms can be sent to 300 Ala Moana, Room 2-235, Honolulu, HI 96850. Forms are available by calling 541-2990 or by e-mailing Doreen Ezuka at doreen.ezuka@sba.gov.

NATION
Host Marriott decreases loss

Host Marriott Corp., the second-largest U.S. hotel owner, said its third-quarter loss narrowed after increased travel allowed the company to charge higher room rates.

The loss shrank to $47 million, or 17 cents a share, from $88 million, or 35 cents, a year earlier, the Bethesda, Md.-based company said in a statement. Revenue in the quarter ended Sept. 10 rose 11 percent to $810 million.

Host Marriott, which owns large urban hotels that cater to conventions, said higher demand for rooms prompted a 4.1 percent rise in the average rate. Revenue per available room will rise 6.3 percent this year for U.S. hotels, the biggest gain in 20 years, consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said.

The company last month bought the Scottsdale Marriott for $57.5 million and in July acquired the Fairmont Kea Lani Maui in Hawaii for $355 million.

WORLD
Shinwa files bankruptcy in Japan

Shinwa Golf Co., a Japanese golf course operator, filed for bankruptcy protection with liabilities of $1.53 billion, said Teikoku Databank, a Tokyo-based credit research company.

The failure by closely held Shinwa is more than twice the size of the largest filing by a publicly traded company this year in Japan.

Shinwa's debt ballooned after the company acquired resort hotels and golf courses in Hawaii in Japan's bubble economy days of the 1980s and early 1990s, Teikoku said. Visitors declined as Japan's economy stagnated.

Shinwa sold property in Wailea, Maui, and on Kauai, including five golf courses, 270 acres of undeveloped land and an undeveloped resort site to a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc. last year for $131.5 million.

Shinwa is based in Japan's Kyoto prefecture, near Osaka.

Daiei creditor to vet investors

UFJ Holdings Inc., the biggest creditor of Daiei Inc., said it will consider offers from overseas and domestic investors for Japan's third-largest retailer after the company agreed to a bailout led by a state-run rescue fund.

Daiei, based in Kobe, and its banks yesterday asked the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan to lead the retailer's third bailout in as many years. The IRCJ will consider investments from bidders that Daiei suggests, said Senior Managing Director Yoshiaki Kawamata of UFJ Bank Ltd., a unit of UFJ Holdings, at a briefing in Tokyo. Daiei shares rose as much as 9.6 percent.

The decision clears the way for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, and other investors to negotiate directly with creditors including UFJ, which are seeking to recoup about $9.1 billion of loans. Kunio Takagi, president of Daiei, had resisted a state-led bailout because he wanted to keep control of the company.

"Daiei's management were clearly desperate to avoid this," said Scott McGlashan, a London-based fund manager at J O Hambro Capital Management Ltd., which manages more than $2 billion in global assets.