Business briefs
Advertiser Staff
Nordic chosen top 10 company
Nordic Construction Ltd. of Waipahu, the builder of the Hawai'i Convention Center, was selected as one of the 10 best companies in the nation for employee financial security.
The Principal Financial Group, a financial services company based in Des Moines, Iowa, selected the winners after reviewing surveys from more than 1,000 Principal clients.
The privately held Nordic, incorporated in Hawai'i in 1950, got its name from its Scandinavian founder. It has about 100 employees, including 35 non-union workers covered by the company's benefit plan, said Nordic chief financial officer Ken Spence.
The plan includes paying 100 percent of employee's health insurance, matching contributions to 401k plans, life insurance and an employee assistance program.
Spence said the company's union employees have a good benefit package and "we try to track the union benefits."
HEI raising $300 million
Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., the parent company of power utilities in the Islands, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise as much as $300 million through the sale of medium-term notes.
Proceeds from the sale have been earmarked for repaying debt, making investments in and loans to subsidiaries, working capital and general corporate purposes, according to the filing.
Also today Standard & Poor's, the credit rating company, said it had revised the outlook for HEI to stable from negative and gave a triple-"B" rating to the company's new medium-term notes.
"The outlook revision can be traced to the diminishing effect on Hawai'i's economy from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," said Barbara A. Eiseman, Standard & Poor's credit analyst, in a statement.
"Importantly, domestic visitor arrivals have rebounded to the previous year's levels since Sept. 11, major air carriers have restored all of the flights cut after the attacks and added new flights, and unemployment has fallen to 4.3 percent after a high of 5.5 percent."
Standard & Poor's said: "Prospects for real economic growth in Hawai'i are bright, with forecasts of a 1.7 percent increase in 2002 following an increase of 1.4 percent in 2001."
