Home Depot growth points to better housing market

ATLANTA » The Home Depot Inc. is feeling more optimistic about the recovery of the housing market after customers spent more on sprucing up their homes in the second quarter.

The country’s biggest home improvement retailer said Tuesday that strong cost controls and healthy sales of paint, bathroom accessories and kitchen installations helped lift its net income by 12 percent during the period.

The Atlanta-based company boosted its full-year outlook.

In a conference call with investors, Chairman and CEO Frank Blake noted that some of the strongest growth in the latest quarter came from the markets that were hit hardest in the downturn, such as California and Florida.

Hawaiian Air will realign Bay Area flights

Hawaiian Airlines will double its nonstop flights between the San Francisco Bay Area and Maui to 14 a week and reduce service to Honolulu.

The state’s largest carrier said Tuesday that starting Oct. 3 it will fly daily to Maui from both Oakland and San Jose.

Except for a six-week seasonal summer increase in service, Hawaiian has been offering four flights per week between Oakland and Maui, and three flights per week between San Jose and Maui since January. The expanded service will add nearly 90,000 new air seats annually to Maui.

At the same time, Hawaiian said its daily service between Oakland and Honolulu will go to four days a week, and daily service between San Jose and Honolulu will be cut to three days a week.

Hawaiian will continue to offer daily service between San Francisco and Honolulu.

"We’ve seen tremendous demand for service to Maui from our customers in Oakland and San Jose, so we’re adjusting our schedules to better match their needs," Hawaiian Chief Commercial Officer Peter Ingram said.

As part of Tuesday’s announcement, Hawaiian said it is offering a special fare sale between both Oakland and San Jose and all the airports Hawaiian serves in Hawaii.

New state ‘Data Book’ available online

The state’s economic development office has released the online version of the 2011 "State of Hawaii Data Book."

The publication is the most comprehensive compilation of statistics on Hawaii with 800 tables covering topics in areas such as population, education, labor, energy, business enterprises, government, tourism and transportation.

The Data Book is available on the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism website, at hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/economic/databook.

Pacific Park Plaza saves via HECO program

Hawaiian Electric Co. has signed up its first customer for a program that gives businesses a break on their power bill if they give HECO permission to turn off power to nonessential facilities on short notice during critical energy situations.

The owners of Pacific Park Plaza, an office building on Kapiolani Boulevard, said participating in HECO’s Fast DR (Demand Response) program is one of several initiatives they are pursuing as part of a plan to improve the efficiency of the building.

Fast DR participants receive $5 a kilowatt per month with a minimum of 50 kilowatts whether or not a DR event is triggered. For example, a business that is willing to turn off equipment that normally requires 50 kilowatts of power would receive a credit of $250 a month, or $3,000 for an entire year. An additional incentive of 50 cents a kilowatt-hour is paid when a DR event occurs, based on energy not consumed compared with energy the customer would have normally used.

The program is designed to help HECO maintain the reliability of its electrical distribution system as it adds more renewable energy to the grid, the company said in a news release.

Hawaii March of Dimes gets new digs

The Hawaii Chapter of the March of Dimes Foundation has relocated its headquarters to the Kapiolani Business Plaza at 1580 Makaloa St.

March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the health of babies, previously had its headquarters in King Center at 1451 S. King St.

Kapiolani Business Plaza is a 12-story office building in the Kapiolani business district.

N.Y. bank settles Iran money probe

ALBANY, N.Y. » New York’s financial regulator said Tuesday that his agency has reached a $340 million settlement with Standard Chartered Bank to resolve an investigation into whether the British bank schemed with the Iranian government to launder $250 billion from 2001 to 2007.

The bank will pay the civil penalty to the state and will strengthen oversight of overseas transactions, New York Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky said.

Standard Chartered spokeswoman Julie Gibson said the New York announcement set out the terms of an agreement, including payment of $340 million, and a formal agreement is expected shortly.

Debt has Europe nearing recession

LONDON » Europe is edging closer to recession, dragged down by the crippling debt problems of the 17 countries that use the euro, official figures showed Tuesday.

Eurostat, Europe’s statistics agency, revealed that the economies of both the eurozone and the European Union, which has 27 countries, shrank by a quarterly rate of 0.2 percent in the second quarter of the year. In the first quarter, output for both regions was flat. A recession is officially defined as two straight quarters of falling output. Europe’s debt woes have been blamed for the sharp deterioration in the global economic outlook over the last few months.

ON THE MOVE

Bright Light Marketing has announced Floyd K. Takeuchi as its vice president. He has 35 years of media experience, including as a reporter at The Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin, editor and publisher of Hawaii Business Magazine, managing editor of the Daily Post in Fiji, publisher of Pacific Magazine as well as president and chief operating officer of PacificBasin Communications and president of aio LLC.

Servco Automotive has announced Ryan Matsumoto as its marketing assistant. He will assist in the planning and executing of the company’s marketing efforts, including promotions, advertising, public relations and events. Matsumoto served as an account coordinator at Laird Christianson Advertising.

RevoluSun has named Troy Roble as director of sales for its Maui division. He was previously a regional sales manager for the leading solar panel manufacturer in the industry, where he managed the two highest-performing regions, which were San Diego and Hawaii.