Business Briefs Star-Bulletin staff and wire services

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HAWAII

Horizon Lines completes $280M ship charter deal

Horizon Lines Inc. has completed a $280 million deal to charter five new U.S.-flagged vessels from Ship Finance International Ltd.

The second-largest ocean shipper in Hawaii announced the agreement last month but did not disclose the purchase price at the time. The additional ships will allow Charlotte, N.C.-based Horizon to increase hauling capacity between Hawaii and the West Coast.

Horizon said the five vessels, being built at the Hyundai Mipo shipyard in South Korea, are scheduled to be delivered over a five-month period beginning in 2007. The terms of the charter is 12 years with a three-year renewal option.

NEW JOBS

» Prudential Advantage Realty has hired Tracy Fukui as a residential sales professional. Fukui will be responsible for providing quality service to clients to help them achieve their real estate goals. Fukui previously served as felony deputy public defender for the state.

» The Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific has appointed Lori L. McCarney vice president of marketing. She most recently served as chief marketing officer for the now-defunct startup FlyHawaii Airlines and previously was Bank of Hawaii's marketing director.

» Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel has appointed Joe Carmona restaurant operations manager. He will be responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the hotel's restaurant and showroom operations. He has 16 years of experience as a food and beverage professional in Hawaii, California and Boston.

» Outrigger Enterprises' condominium/timeshare division has appointed Scott Candland operations vice president. He will be responsible for overseeing all operations and management of the company's 14 condominium resorts and four Fairfield timeshare properties in Hawaii. He has over 25 years of experience in managing destination properties.

» EzRez has hired Ryan Aylward as vice president of engineering. He will be responsible for coordinating the technical infrastructure and product releases for the company's network of travel companies and online engines.

» Koyo USA has appointed Aya Mudgett showroom manager for MaHaLo Hawaii Deep Sea Water. She will be responsible for the daily operations and management of the Waikiki showroom. Originally from Tokyo, she previously worked for Geos Corp., a language academy that offers English instruction to students from all over the world.

NATION

Bausch & Lomb stock plunges

Shares of Bausch & Lomb Inc. tumbled 17 percent yesterday after the eye-care products maker halted shipments of a contact lens solution linked by federal officials to a rare fungal infection that can cause blindness.

Analysts cut their ratings, fearing the news could hurt sales of the company's other products. The stock dipped $9.83 to a 2 1/2-year low of $47.61 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Workers hit with insider trading

Federal prosecutors charged junior employees at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with making $6.7 million on insider-trading schemes involving takeover leaks, magazine stock tips and an exotic dancer.

Stanislav Shpigelman, 23, a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Merrill, gave secret information on six pending deals to two Goldman employees in exchange for cash payments, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia claimed in a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday. In a separate scheme, the Goldman colleagues, Eugene Plotkin, 26, and David Pajcin, 29, illegally obtained the names of stocks mentioned in Business Week before the magazine was mailed out.

Wal-Mart managers mainly male

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., in its first detailed report on its hiring practices, said more than half of its employees are women and about a third are minorities.

The report for 2005 showed that 32 percent of the 1.34 million Wal-Mart employees in the United States were minorities.

Women accounted for 60 percent of the overall work force, 39 percent of officers and managers and 75 percent of sales workers.

The world's largest retailer said it will be "much more transparent" in issuing employment data and that it will release information on gender and race on a regular basis. The disclosure followed two days of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. hearings on Wal-Mart's plan to open a bank in which labor groups and consumer advocates criticized the company's labor practices and benefits.

Vioxx jury adds $9 million damages

Merck's legal morass just got a whole lot stickier. A jury in Atlantic City, N.J., found yesterday that Merck had misled the Food and Drug Administration about the dangers of its painkiller Vioxx and acted with wanton disregard for patients taking the drug.

By a vote of 7-1, jurors awarded $9 million in punitive damages to John McDarby, 77, who had a heart attack in 2004 after taking Vioxx for four years, and his wife, Irma. Last week, it gave the McDarbys $4.5 million in compensatory damages.

Best Buy hit with restraining order

AUSTIN, Texas » A Texas software company sued Best Buy Co. Inc. in federal court yesterday, alleging that the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer was using unlicensed versions of its diagnostic equipment.

In response, a U.S. District Court granted Winternals Software LP's request for a temporary restraining order.

The lawsuit by Austin-based Winternals alleges employees of Best Buy's computer-repair subsidiary, Geek Squad Inc., have been using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off.

WORLD

GM to shed Isuzu stake for $300M

TOKYO » General Motors said yesterday that it would sell the last of its large stakes in a Japanese carmaker, 7.9 percent of Isuzu Motors, for $300 million.

It is the third time since October that GM has sold off a stake in a Japanese auto company, rapidly dissolving equity partnerships built up over more than three decades, to raise cash that it needs for an overhaul at home. GM has already earned $2.7 billion from the sale of shares of Suzuki Motor and Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subaru.

China to crack down on copyright piracy

WASHINGTON » The Bush administration, seeking to shrink a soaring trade deficit with China, won agreements yesterday that the Chinese government will lift a ban on American beef, crack down on copyright piracy and move toward opening up its government bidding process to American firms.

The exact timetable for lifting the beef ban was left open, however, pending further negotiations over details governing the standards that will be applied to beef shipped to China. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns predicted such shipments would resume sometime this year.