Hawaii business confidence declines
The performance index for Hawaii businesses, which measures changes in revenue, profit and staffing, has dropped six points since April, and with this downturn will come continued erosion of consumer confidence, according to the most recent Business Outlook and Sentiment Survey.
In the past year, 69 percent of the companies surveyed said that they have increased or maintained their staff size. However, 31 percent of companies surveyed cut staff. Hawaii’s small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 10 employees, said that they were hardest hit this year with 52 percent reporting decreased profit and 46 percent indicating that they took in less revenue.
As such, the optimism index for Hawaii businesses has gradually declined since last year. While 38 percent of Hawaii leaders surveyed indicated that the coming year will bring improvements, 29 percent said the economy would remain the same and 32 percent said it would worsen. About half of those surveyed who indicated that Hawaii’s economy would worsen said that it would not improve for at least two years, and just slightly less said that they expected Hawaii’s economy could take five years to recover. Members of Hawaii’s visitor industry were more pessimistic than those in other sectors.
The telephone survey, conducted Oct. 3-13 by QMark Research, randomly polled Hawaii 400 business leaders across the isles. The last survey was conducted in April.
Hawaiian Air to hire 275 flight attendants
Hawaiian Airlines, which has been expanding in domestic and international markets, will hold group interviews of 2,200 applicants for 275 flight attendant positions Monday at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Exhibition Hall. Hawaiian has already pre-registered the applicants for interviews.
Hawaiian has more than 4,200 employees, the most in company history. Including the hiring of new flight attendants, Hawaii will have added approximately 400 new employees to its work force by mid-2012.
Garden Island owner to file for bankruptcy
DAVENPORT, Iowa » The publisher of the Garden Island on Kauai, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and more than 40 other newspapers is close to completing a complex debt refinancing plan that includes a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
Lee Enterprises Inc. disclosed details of the plan on Friday. The prepackaged Chapter 11 filing, which Lee expects to initiate in about 10 days, is designed to force uncooperative lenders to go along with a refinancing arrangement that Lee reached with a majority of its lenders in September.
CEO Mary Junck described the refinancing plan as welcome news because it will give the company more time to repay its debt while protecting the interests of shareholders. The proposed refinancing covers about $1 billion in debt. Most of the money would have been due in April, but the refinancing will extend the scheduled repayments into 2015 and 2017. Most of Lee’s debt is a result of its $1.46 billion acquisition of Pulitzer Inc. in 2005.
Sunetric expands to 3 mainland cities
Kailua-based Sunetric, one of Hawaii’s leading renewable energy and solar installation companies, is expanding to the mainland.
The company said it will open offices in Denver, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.
"Strategically located regional offices will allow the company to effectively pursue public and private-sector opportunities throughout the country while staying based in Hawaii, where it will continue to grow its existing residential, commercial, and government business," the company said in a news release.
In addition to installing photovoltaic solar systems, Sunetric will offer a new range of services on the mainland, including energy audits and total building energy-efficiency upgrades.
"There are a growing number of renewable energy opportunities across the country for a company with the experience and versatility of Sunetric," CEO Alex Tiller said.
Sunetric, a fully integrated solar company, has 140 employees and estimated 2011 sales of more than $130 million.
$2M upgrade boosts Mobi data speeds
Mobi PCS said it has completed a $2 million upgrade to network hardware and key cell sites, increasing data speeds for both the company’s smartphone and Hele Wireless Broadband customers.
Among other hardware enhancements, Mobi replaced its data network core controller with a larger and faster model with higher capacity.
The new core controller supports faster speeds by managing network applications with a greater level of efficiency, the company said.
Mobi PCS is Hawaii’s only locally based wireless provider to offer unlimited talk, text and data for a flat rate. The company has nine retail locations on Oahu, two on Hawaii island and one on Maui. In addition, Mobi’s products and services can be purchased at 100 dealers across the state.
ON THE MOVE
The Hawaii Employers Council has announced Cathy Keaulani as its research manager. She has 25 years of human resources and compensation experience and was previously a senior human resources information system and compensation manager with DFS Group, where she was responsible for global compensation programs and policies.
Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii has announced the following honors for 2012:
» Billy Borengasser has been recognized as civilian engineer/architect of the year. He is also a supervisory civil engineer at the facilities engineering and acquisition division.
» Lt. Christopher Casne is military engineer/architect of the year. He works in the facilities engineering and acquisition division south team lead.
The Nature Conservancy has announced that James "Kimo" Haynes III has joined the organization’s Hawaii board of trustees. He is the president of Maui Petroleum, Hawaii Petroleum and Minit Stop.
The following executives have been elected to the Hawaii Employers Council Board of Governors to serve three-year terms: Dean Kapoi, Barry Marr, Ruthann Quitiquit and Toby Taniguchi are newly elected board members. Re-elected board members are Dennis Brown, Sai Chantavy, Melvin Chiba, Gary Ettinger, John Monahan, Tammy Nakamatsu and Michael White.
