BUSINESS BRIEFS
Advertiser seeks voluntary cuts
Advertiser Staff and News Services
The Honolulu Advertiser has announced a new round of voluntary buyouts as part of a plan to cut expenses by $5 million to $10 million a year.
Management at The Advertiser yesterday informed union representatives about the voluntary staff reductions and other work place changes but said details will be disclosed next week.
"We have a great team here at The Advertiser and I am confident we will all continue to work together, changing when and where we must, ensuring we grow our way into the future," Advertiser Publisher Lee Webber said in an e-mail to employees.
"Because of the continued deterioration in local, national and world economic conditions we are working toward a reduction of from $5 million to $10 million in expenses through work place changes."
In June 2007, the company offered early-retirement packages to 32 employees and this past July the company laid off 54 workers. A second round of layoffs affecting 27 workers was announced in August.
PACIFIC LIGHTNET SOLD TO INVESTORS
Pacific LightNet Inc., a home-grown telecommunications company, has completed its sale to a group of local and Mainland investors.
The Public Utilities Commission had previously approved Pacific LightNet's application to transfer ownership to stock to SK Telecom Holdings LP. The transaction will not affect the company's service offerings to any of its customers, Pacific LightNet said. Service rates will also remain unchanged.
Pacific LightNet was previously jointly-owned by a Washington-based telecommunications and real estate company, NextNet Investments, and TM Communications Hawaii LLC.
The company's first major product launch since the transaction has also become the state's first fully-managed and operated voice and high-speed Internet service called the "Hosted PBX System." This product makes it easier and more cost-effective for small and medium-sized businesses to receive multiple voice and data services over a single broadband connection.
LONGS BACKS CVS TAKEOVER OFFER
Longs Drug Stores Corp.'s largest institutional shareholder, Advisory Research Inc., said it will support CVS Caremark Corp.'s $2.7 billion takeover offer.
Advisory Research, which owns 9.2 percent of Longs, is disappointed Walgreen Co. withdrew its $2.8 billion bid Oct. 8, President David Heller said. The firm said in a statement it will tender its shares in favor of CVS's cash offer.
Longs Drug directors said they spurned the Walgreen bid because they thought it posed an antitrust risk.
Longs has 521 stores in four Western states, including 39 in Hawai'i.
MICROWAVE GROUP RETURNING IN 2017
An international group of microwave engineers were so pleased with their 2007 meeting at the Hawai'i Convention Center that officials have signed up to return a decade later — in 2017.
Officials announced last week that the Hawai'i Convention Center will once again host the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' International Microwave Symposium in 2017.
The symposium is the premier conference of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society and will feature a trade show, presentations of technical papers and workshops.
Last year's symposium at the center drew more than 7,000 participants from around the world who contributed nearly $34 million to the state's economy, along with more than $3.2 million in tax revenue.
