BUSINESS BRIEFS
Honolulu gas prices still highest
Advertiser Staff and News Services
CAMARILLO, Calif. — The average price for gasoline in the U.S. dropped about 4 cents over the last two weeks, according to a national survey released yesterday.
The average price of regular gasoline on Friday was $2.75 a gallon, midgrade was $2.87 and premium was $2.99, oil industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said.
The nation's lowest average price was in Newark, N.J., where a gallon of regular cost $2.52. The highest was in Honolulu at $3.09, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide.
CHRYSLER TOLD OF POTENTIAL STRIKE
DETROIT — Negotiators with the United Auto Workers union and Chrysler LLC have made progress on efforts to reach a new four-year contract agreement, but the union has notified the company that a strike is possible, a person briefed on the talks said yesterday.
The union gave Chrysler a 72-hour notice of a potential strike, the person said, but it was unclear yesterday exactly whether the notice would end tomorrow or Wednesday.
Bargainers working in committees made progress during the weekend but still have much work to do on difficult issues, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.
SAP WILL BUY BUSINESS OBJECTS
BERLIN — SAP AG, the world's largest maker of business-management software, agreed to buy Business Objects SA for more than $6.8 billion, the biggest purchase in its 35-year history.
SAP will offer $59 in cash for each Business Objects share, 20 percent more than the closing price on Friday in Paris, SAP said in a statement late yesterday. Business Objects, based in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, is the world's largest maker of software to track corporate databases.
