Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Monday, April 7, 1997
A Kauai care home, Hale Omao Inc., has been granted a federally guaranteed loan of $1.6 million to add 20 beds to its facility at Lawaii. Kauai care home
gets federally backed loanThe federal guarantee made it possible for Hale Omao to get the loan from First Hawaiian Bank. The guarantee comes from the rural development program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, designed to maintain and create jobs in small communities.
Hilo-based Francis J. Blanco, state director of the program, said that in fiscal 1997 $8.9 million in USDA-backed business and industry loans had been made in Hawaii by private lenders. The Kauai loan is the fifth.
The Big Island is online this month, and officials hope it leads to some extra visitors. National Geographic's
Web site visits Big IsleThe island is the feature destination this month on the National Geographic Magazine page on the Internet.
The National Geographic site gives viewers a virtual tour of the Big Island that includes travel tips and photos. The site is http://www.nationalgeographic.com.
NEW YORK -- Bankers Trust New York Corp., in a move that removes the last brick from the wall between banks and brokers, agreed to buy Alex. Brown & Sons, Inc., the nation's oldest stock brokerage. Bankers Trust to buy
Alex. Brown & SonsThe $1.7 billion deal, announced late yesterday, is the most dramatic result of federal banking regulators' gradual moves to allow banks and brokerages to merge.
Federal regulators have been loosening the Depression-era law aimed at preventing banks from taking risks in the stock market by barring them from merging with Wall Street brokerages.
While it doesn't have the branch network many associate with banks, Bankers Trust is a big lender to corporations. In acquiring Alex. Brown, it gets a firm well known for handling initial public stock offerings of small health care and technology companies, such as America Online Inc.
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Union workers picketed for a third day today after weekend talks failed to end a strike at the only General Motors Corp. assembly plant producing the Oldsmobile Cutlass. GM, union talk
as 3,500 workers strikeAbout 3,500 members of United Auto Workers Local 1999 walked off the job just before midnight Friday because contract talks had stalled over health, safety and work force issues. Negotiators for GM and the union met Saturday and yesterday without reaching a deal. Talks resumed today.
"They are talking and that's what is needed to eventually reach an agreement," GM spokesman Chuck Licari said. "Hopefully, that will come as soon as possible."
But a UAW official said a union policy committee concerned with health, safety and other issues was far from an agreement with the automaker.