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POSTED: Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Taihook selling airport parcel

Taihook Associates has placed a 1.28-acre parcel up for sale in the airport industrial area for a minimum price of $5.5 million.

CB Richard Ellis broker Scott Gomes is marketing the fee-simple property, which will be offered through a bid process with a minimum price of $5.5 million starting in mid-May. Bids will be due in mid-June.

The property at 2999 Nimitz Highway is zoned IMX1, industrial mixed-use, with about 20,000 square feet of improvements. JN Chevrolet/Mazda is the current tenant.

Hunt signs pact with Kamaaina Kids

Kamaaina Kids has signed a lease with the Hunt Development Group to open a day care center in Kalaeloa.

The 9,000-square-foot facility on a 1.88-acre lot is expected to serve families from Ewa to Kapolei with infant, toddler and preschool programs.

The facility, which was once owned and managed by the U.S. Navy, previously was open to military families only but will now be open to the public.

Microsoft resumes layoff blitz

SEATTLE » Microsoft Corp. said yesterday it is pulling the trigger on thousands of the 5,000 job cuts it announced earlier this year.

And in an e-mail to employees, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer left the door open to even more cuts.

“;As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations,”; he wrote.

When Microsoft announced its first-ever companywide layoffs in late January, the software maker immediately cut 1,400 positions, with the remaining 3,600 cuts to come over an 18-month period.

Bank of America resists Treasury plan

New York » The government has told Bank of America it needs $33.9 billion in capital to withstand any worsening of the economic downturn, according to an executive at the bank, a determination that could make the United States the controlling shareholder in the bank.

Executives sparred with the government over the amount, which is higher than executives believed the bank needed. But J. Steele Alphin, the bank's chief administrative officer, said Bank of America would have plenty of options to raise the capital on its own before it would have to convert any taxpayer money into common stock, a move that would effectively increase the government's holdings in the troubled bank.

Because Bank of America has already received $45 billion in federal assistance from the Treasury in exchange for preferred shares, it could satisfy regulators' demands simply by converting the nonvoting preferred shares to common stock.

Under the arrangement worked out between the Treasury and Citigroup earlier this year, the Treasury will receive mandatory convertible preferred shares, meaning preferred shares that can be converted to voting shares of common stock at the will of the government.

If Bank of America relied on that conversion for the majority of the capital it needs to maintain, the government would become the bank's controlling shareholder.

On the move

» Trump International Hotel and Tower Waikiki Beach Walk has hired Scott Ingwers as managing director. He has more than 20 years of luxury-resort management experience and was previously a hotel manager for the Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui.

» The 2009 Small Business Person of the Year for Hawaii County award went to John D. Stover, D.D.S., M.D., Ph.D. With medical offices in Hilo, Kona and Waimea, Stover offers cosmetic services and products such as oral and maxillofacial surgery, facial and general cosmetic surgery, nonsurgical cosmetic procedures, complete dermatology care and comprehensive varicose vein treatment.