BUSINESS BRIEFS
Longs shares hit 52-week low on weak forecast
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Shares of Longs Drug Stores Corp. hit a fresh 52-week low yesterday, after the drugstore operator offered weak 2008 guidance amid a difficult economic environment.
Late Wednesday, the company reported fourth-quarter profit rose 38 percent, to 97 cents per share, excluding items, matching estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Revenue grew 11 percent.
However, the company said it expects fiscal 2009 — which ends Jan. 29, 2009 — profit to be between $3.02 to $3.12 per share, while analysts expect a higher profit of $3.14 per share.
Shares of Longs, which operates Hawai'i's largest chain of drugstores, tumbled $6.81, or 14.2 percent, to close at $41, after reaching a fresh low of $40.07 earlier in the session.
NORDSTROM SALES DISMAY ANALYSTS
SEATTLE — Luxury department store Nordstrom Inc. reported a worse-than-expected decline in same-store sales for February.
The retailer said sales in its stores open for a year or more fell 5.8 percent in the month. Analysts anticipated a drop of 3.5 percent. Nordstrom plans to open its first full-line department store in Hawai'i today at Ala Moana Center.
Nordstrom shares fell $2.59, or 6.9 percent, to $34.75, yesterday.
EUROPEAN BANKS KEEP RATES INTACT
FRANKFURT, Germany — The message from Europe: Market turmoil and a soaring euro won't sway the continent's dominant central bank to reduce interest rates — no matter how loudly markets, politicians and businesses bray for the kind of cuts being made elsewhere.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet stressed his mandate to fight inflation yesterday after his bank and the Bank of England both kept their key rates unchanged. The euro hurtled to another record high against the dollar as Trichet quashed any expectation of a rate cut soon, dashing some analysts' predictions.
The 15 nations that use the euro include more than 318 million people and account for more than 15 percent of the world's GDP. European industry groups and labor unions are worried that as the euro rises, Europeans will lose orders to U.S. and Japanese competitors.
CHARGES FILED IN TOOTHPASTE CASE
LOS ANGELES — Criminal charges have been filed against officials of two companies that prosecutors say imported and distributed more than 70,000 tubes of Chinese toothpaste containing a poisonous substance, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo announced yesterday.
Vernon Sales Inc. and Selective Imports Corp. allegedly sold toothpaste containing diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze and as a solvent.
Vernon Sales President Kamyab Toofer and Vice President Pejman Mossay each were charged with 14 criminal counts of receiving, selling and delivering an adulterated drug. Selective Imports President Frahad Nazarian and Vice President Yones Ghermezi each were charged with two criminal counts each of receiving, selling and delivering products containing the chemical known as DEG.
MILITARY AIRCRAFT DEAL RAISES ISSUES
WASHINGTON — If it's un-American to send military contracting jobs to France, is it OK to send them to Japan? That's the question Boeing might have to answer if it wrestles back a $35 billion Air Force refueling tanker contract.
The awarding of the contract last week to a European plane maker — and not Boeing Co. — has sparked outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security.
But even if Chicago-based Boeing had won the deal, critical parts of its tankers would have come from other countries, including Japan and Italy. And the tankers that will be built by European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its partner, Northrop Grumman Corp., are certain to produce jobs in the U.S.
