Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire


Thirty-year mortgage rates rose to 7.78%

WASHINGTON - Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 7.78 percent this week, up from 7.69 percent last week, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.

On one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.62 percent, unchanged from last week. Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for people refinancing mortgages, averaged 7.29 percent this week, up from 7.19 percent a week earlier.

The rates do not include add-on fees known as points.



Properties Unlimited joins with Prudential

Properties Unlimited East has merged into Prudential Locations but will remain in its 4211 Waialae Ave. offices for now, under Prudential's name.

Helen Lindemann, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors and one of the five co-owners of Properties Unlimited, said joining with Prudential Locations means better service for clients, because of the bigger firm's sophisticated computer system and innovative approaches to real estate.

Properties Unlimited has about 20 agents. Lindemann's partners are Virginia Eji, Kelly Suzuki-Shreve, Bonnie Cheung and Joan Akita.



Investors connect with AT&T unit's offering

NEW YORK - AT&T Corp.'s telephone equipment operation broke away on Thursday, becoming an independent firm called Lucent Technologies Inc. in the largest initial public stock offering ever of a U.S. company.

Investor interest has been high in the company that is expected to capitalize on the growth in wireless communication devices.

Lucent shares closed at $30.62, up $3.62 from its opening on the New York Stock Exchange. About 41 million shares traded hands.

The 112 million Lucent shares offered to the public were initially priced at $27, making the overall stock offering worth $3.02 billion. That surpasses the $2.1 billion initial public offering of Allstate Corp., which was spun off from Sears Roebuck & Co. in 1993.

AT&T still owns 83 percent of Lucent's overall 635.6 million shares. It will divide those shares among AT&T stockholders later this year.

AT&T's stock fell $1.25 to close at $62.87, also on the NYSE.



For more local, national and international business news, see the Hawaii Inc. section in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.




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