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- <text id=90TT2836>
- <title>
- Oct. 29, 1990: Business Notes:Deals
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Oct. 29, 1990 Can America Still Compete?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 85
- Business Notes
- DEALS
- Take My Bank, Please
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> The man with the golden touch has struck it rich again--or has he? Former Treasury Secretary William Simon reaped a $66
- million profit when he and fellow investors acquired Gibson
- Greetings in 1982 and sold the card company back to public
- stockholders 16 months later. That windfall helped create the
- 1980s boom in leveraged buyouts and established Simon's
- reputation as a master of mouth-watering financial deals.
- </p>
- <p> Simon now stands to pocket an estimated $20 million by
- selling First Interstate of Hawaii, which owns the state's
- fourth largest bank, to First Hawaiian, the second largest
- banking firm, for about $140 million. Simon's investment group
- paid $31 million for First Interstate when it acquired the
- holding company last year.
- </p>
- <p> But the Justice Department has urged the Federal Reserve
- Board to reject Simon's latest deal on the ground that it would
- substantially lessen competition among Hawaii's banks. In its
- application, First Hawaiian, which has 58 branches, said it
- would sell three offices outside Honolulu once the merger was
- approved. Bank officials had hoped the step would help
- eliminate antitrust objections to the purchase of First
- Interstate. Even if the Federal Reserve ultimately approves the
- merger, Justice could go to court to block the deal.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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