Briefly

30-year mortgage rate increases to 3.80 percent

WASHINGTON » Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates are up this week to the highest level since mid-March.

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday that the national average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 3.80 percent this week from 3.68 percent a week earlier. The rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.02 percent, up from 2.94 percent and the first time it has topped 3 percent since it hit 3.06 percent in mid-March.

A year ago the average 30-year rate stood at 4.21 percent and the 15-year at 3.32 percent.

The 30-year average rate hit a record-low 3.31 percent in November 2012. The 15-year average hit bottom at 2.56 percent in May 2013.

Hilton menus to go on ANA’s Hawaii flights

A global partnership between Hilton Worldwide and ANA, Japan’s largest airline, temporarily will put Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort menus in the carrier’s first-class lounges at Haneda and Narita airports and on flights to and from Hawaii.

Hawaii was selected as the first destination to kick-start the program, which is expected to pair ANA and various Hilton properties through 2017. About 150 members of the media attended the press conference, which featured hula dancers, Friday in Japan.

Jerry Gibson, area vice president for Hilton Hawaii, said the timing of the initial Hawaii-focused phase of the partnership, which runs from June 1 to Aug. 31, couldn’t be better because it’s a peak summer travel period for the Japan market to Hawaii. Gibson said the partnership also comes at a time when the Japan market on Oahu is down by 3.8 percent year-over-year, which is significant given that Japan is Oahu’s largest visitor source.

Some of the items will include Hawaiian Gyouza with guava barbecue sauce, seafood poke, braised short ribs with ginger, coconut tapioca with guava sauce, Hawaiian Noodles and marinated seafood, grilled chicken with pineapple chutney and taro bread.

Isle exec part of Queen Kapiolani Hotel deal

The Queen Kapiolani Hotel, a 312-room property across the street from Kapiolani Park, recently was acquired for an undisclosed amount.

The hotel was purchased by ProspectHill Group through its affiliate DiamondHead Land, which is a joint venture of ProspectHill Group and longtime Hawaii tourism executive Patrick Fitzgerald, who served on the board of the Hawaii Tourism Authority from 2010 to 2014. San Francisco-based ProspectHill is a real estate investment company with property interests in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London. Its principals include Greg Hartman, Ian Pihl and Gam­bhir Kau­shek.

"Our investment into the Queen Kapiolani Hotel provides DiamondHead Land the opportunity to reclaim this independent hotel’s iconic status as a Wai­kiki landmark," said Fitzgerald, whose local tourism experience also includes the Four Seasons Hualalai Resort and Kona Village Resort.

DiamondHead Land has retained Kokua Hospitality to operate the hotel and plans to invest substantial capital into a repositioning program for the asset, which is at 150 Kapa­hulu Ave.

L.A. Times parent to buy U-T San Diego paper

LOS ANGELES » The parent company of the Los Angeles Times has agreed to buy U-T San Diego, uniting the newspapers of California’s two largest cities under common ownership.

Tribune Publishing — owner of the Times, the Chicago Tribune and other daily newspapers — announced Thursday that it will pay $85 million in a cash-and-stock deal for the U-T, eight community weeklies and related websites.

The acquisition will extend the company’s reach into the country’s eighth-largest city and give it a dominant position over a wide swath of Southern California.

The newly formed California News Group will oversee Tribune Publishing operations in the two markets. The U-T will remain a separate newspaper.

The U-T, whose roots go back to 1868 and which was known until recently as the San Diego Union-Tribune, serves a metropolitan area of more than 3 million. It has 622 employees, 173 of them in the newsroom. The paper has won four Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2009.

The U-T reported Sunday circulation of 271,564 for the first quarter of this year. On other days circulation has ranged from 169,484 to 222,479.

Jeff Light, president and editor of the U-T, said "without a doubt there will be some savings — which, unfortunately, is another way of saying layoffs."

Ship Ahoy!

Today’s ship arrivals and departures:

On the Move

» Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert has promoted Matthew T. Evans to director of the firm. Evans practices primarily in the firm’s real estate and construction, business and commercial, dispute resolution and creditor’s rights practice groups.

» The University of Hawaii Foundation has announced the following hires and promotion:

— Tara Loty is UH Foundation’s director of alumni engagement for Manoa. She was previously a manager of community engagement at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

— Donna Gutierrez is joining the alumni relations team as director of alumni engagement for community colleges after serving as director of special events at the UH Foundation for the past 8 1/2 years. She has been working in the nonprofit sector for 20 years and was previously a youth programs manager at MADD-Hawaii.

— Roxanne Kam has been promoted to director of alumni engagement programs from interim director of alumni relations. She has been with UH Foundation since 2008, serving as associate director of membership and chapter relations in the office of alumni relations.