Business Briefs

Chan named head of Starwood in Hawaii

Harris Chan, who will assume the role of vice president of operations for Starwood Hotels and Resorts in Hawaii and French Polynesia at year’s end, made an early appearance on Thursday at a celebration of the 50-year partnership between Starwood and Kyo-ya Co.

Chan will join former Sheraton Waikiki General Manager Kelly Sanders in replacing longtime Starwood veteran Keith Vieira, who has been a fixture in Hawaii’s hospitality industry for 40 years, and is retiring later this year from his regional leadership role. Sanders, who will report to Chan, is being promoted to area managing director and will oversee Starwood’s four Waikiki properties and the central resources team that services them. In his new role, Chan will focus on development of new hotel possibilities and working with neighbor island properties, while Sanders will focus on the day-to-day operations in Waikiki.

"Hawaii is second home to myself and my family," said Chan, who has worked on and off in the Hawaiian Islands since 1984. "I was last in The Royal Hawaiian hotel in 1992 and there are still at least 30 of the staff that I can recognize and remember, and I used to work with all of the regional team. With all of the wonderful people here, this is just like coming home."

Tesoro gets refinery ready for production

Tesoro Corp. has begun restarting the Kapolei refinery, the largest of two in Hawaii, after finishing planned repairs, a person with direct knowledge of operations said.

The plant began circulating oil through units this week, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is not public.

Par Petroleum Corp. agreed in June to buy the complex upon its restart. The refinery was expected to take a few weeks to return to full rates, a person familiar with the schedule said.

The 94,000-barrel-a-day refinery was shut for at least three months as Tesoro searched for a buyer, increasing Hawaii’s dependence on jet fuel imports.

Chevron Corp.’s 54,000-barrel-a-day Kapolei complex is the only other refinery in the state.

Brad Ginsburg, a spokesman for Par Petroleum in Houston, declined to comment on plant’s operations and said Wednesday the company plans to issue an update on the sale "shortly." Tina Barbee, a spokeswoman at Tesoro’s headquarters in San Antonio, declined by email Thursday to comment on the specifics of the refinery’s turnaround.

Tesoro CEO Greg Goff said in a call with analysts on Aug. 2 that Tesoro expects to close the sale in September.

Mystery malfunction shuts down Nasdaq

NEW YORK » A mysterious glitch halted trading on the Nasdaq for three hours Thursday in the latest major electronic breakdown on Wall Street, embarrassing the stock exchange that hosts the biggest names in technology, including Apple, Microsoft and Google.

The problem sent brokers racing to figure out what went wrong and raised new questions about the pitfalls of the electronic trading systems that have come to dominate the nation’s stock markets.

Nasdaq said only that the problem lay in its system for disseminating prices and that it planned to investigate.

The outage disrupted what had otherwise been a quiet summer day on Wall Street. It was another in a series of technical problems to disrupt financial markets in recent years, though less alarming than the "flash crash" plunge of May 2010.

The Nasdaq, dominated by some of the largest, most prosperous technology companies, sent out an alert shortly after noon that said trading would stop. The Nasdaq spent much of the afternoon stuck at 3,631.17. Trading resumed at 3:25 p.m. Thirty-five minutes later, the day ended with the index up 38 points, or 1 percent, at 3,638.71.

Fed speculation drives up mortgage rates to 2-year high

WASHINGTON >> Average U.S. rates for fixed mortgages rose this week to their highest levels in two years, driven by heightened speculation that the Federal Reserve will slow its bond purchases later this year.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan jumped to 4.58 percent, up from 4.40 percent last week. The average on the 15-year fixed loan rose to 3.60 percent from 3.44 percent. Both averages are the highest since July 2011.

Rates have risen more than a full percentage point since May. Last week’s spike comes after more Fed members signaled they could be open to reducing the bond purchases as early as September.

The purchases have helped keep long-term interest rates low, including mortgage rates.

ON THE MOVE

The following have taken over state leadership roles with Toastmasters International: 

» Robert Cravalho is the new district governor. He is also a member of Honolulu’s Finest Club, a Toastmasters group that meets at the Honolulu Police Department headquarters.

» Eliot DeRego is lieutenant governor for education and training.

» Charles Mole is lieutenant governor of marketing.

Pulama Lana‘i has named: 

» Randall K. Ishikawa as senior vice president and general counsel. He was previously an associate general counsel in the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Office of the University General Counsel.

» Harrilynn Kame‘enui as associate general counsel. She was previously a manager for regulatory affairs at Hawaiian Electric Co.