Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Thursday, June 26, 1997

Thirty-year mortgages
drop to 7.58 percent

WASHINGTON -- Average interest rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell this week to the lowest level in four months. The average decreased to 7.58 percent from 7.61 percent a week earlier, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. said today.

It was the lowest rate since late February, five weeks before the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy. After the tightening, the rate rose to a seven-month high of 8.18 percent for the week ended April 3 and has declined in nine of the 12 weeks since.

Fifteen-year mortgages averaged 7.13 percent this week, also the lowest since the week ended Feb. 20 and down from 7.14 percent a week earlier.

On one-year adjustable rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.66 percent this week, the same as last week.

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

Two ambulance firms
merge isle operations

Colorado-based American Medical Response Inc., which has an ambulance operation on Maui, has completed its acquisition of International Life Support, a Hawaii ambulance company with 24 ambulances and 180 employees on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island.

For now, operations won't change and ILS will continue to operate under its own name, said William Bailey, an ILS spokesman. "It (the merger) lets us go forward with a more competitive product," he said.

Based on a February tentative agreement, AMR bought ILS from its shareholders for an undisclosed price.

GM's '98 models sport
small price increase

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. said today that prices for its 1998 models will increase an average of 1.3 percent, the automaker's smallest fall increase in more than a decade.

The move reflects fierce competition in the auto market as sales level off after four years of growth. GM said prices for its cars will increase an average of 1.5 percent; truck prices will rise only 1.1 percent on average.

The averages represent only the 42 models being carried over from the 1997 model year, not all-new and substantially redesigned models. Prices for the Oldsmobile Intrigue, Chevrolet Prizm, Chevrolet Corvette convertible and Cadillac Seville will be announced closer to their introduction.

Pennzoil sues to stop
hostile takeover bid

HOUSTON -- Pennzoil Co. has sued Union Pacific Resources Group Inc. in an attempt to stop an unsolicited $4.2 billion hostile takeover bid. The lawsuit alleges that Fort Worth-based Union Pacific hasn't disclosed the negative earnings impact the deal could have on some of the stock Pennzoil shareholders would receive in the deal.

Union Pacific made its offer for Houston-based Pennzoil earlier this week, offering to pay $84 per share in cash for 50.1 percent of Pennzoil's stock. The other Pennzoil shareholders would receive Union Pacific Resources stock worth $84 for each of their shares. The company also would assume $2.2 billion of Pennzoil debt.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in federal court in Delaware, challenges the accuracy and completeness of disclosures in the Union Pacific offer filed with regulators.