BUSINESS BRIEFS
Maui Divers adding five stores
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Maui Divers Jewelry is expanding with five more Hawai'i stores over the next few months to give the company 65 retail outlets.
A store at Honolulu International Airport opened Sept. 1, and is to be followed by stores at International Marketplace in Waikiki and Queen Ka'ahumanu Center on Maui next month.
Two more, including one Island Pearls shop, are slated to open in December at the Outrigger Waikiki Beach Walk project.
TRUST SELLING WAHIAWA PARCEL
A land-owning trust scheduled to terminate next year is putting 2,100 acres of Wahiawa agricultural land up for sale.
The George Galbraith Trust under direction of trustee Bank of Hawaii has retained real estate firms Cushman & Wakefield and Sofos Realty Corp. to market the property without an asking price.
Most of the land was formerly leased to Del Monte for pineapple production. The property for sale excludes Poamoho Camp, an old pineapple plantation residential area that a local developer bought last year with a plan to sell homes to existing tenants.
FCC SUPPORTS AT&T PURCHASE
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is recommending approval of AT&T Inc.'s $67 billion purchase of BellSouth Corp., people familiar with the matter said yesterday.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated a recommendation approving the purchase without conditions late Thursday night, meaning a formal vote is likely to occur at the agency's Oct. 12 meeting. The FCC's action is unusual in that it comes before the Justice Department has reached a decision on whether the deal will adversely affect competition and possibly harm consumers.
Justice is still involved in challenges to two previous telcom deals: the purchase by SBC Communications Inc. of the old AT&T Corp., and Verizon Communications Inc.'s purchase of MCI Inc.
TARGET TO MATCH $4 DRUG PLAN
MIAMI — Target has decided to copy Wal-Mart's plan to sell $4 generics — a move that experts say is likely to create a completely new and cheaper pricing structure for America's off-patent medicines.
"I think you're going to see very simplified pricing for generics in most places now," said Richard D. Hastings, an analyst with Bernard Sands. "You're not going to be seeing $10 here and $16 there and $20 over there" for the same generic drug — a pricing chaos that frequently exists now.
On Thursday, Wal-Mart shocked the retail industry by saying it would offer 30-day supplies of 291 generic drugs for $4 in Tampa immediately, expand to the rest of Florida on Jan. 1, and then roll it out to the rest of the nation.
