BUSINESS BRIEFS
Iolani champs at economics
Advertiser Staff
A team from Iolani School beat out 4,000 competitors from across the country to win the 2006 National Economics Challenge yesterday in New York City for the second straight year.
Iolani seniors Megan Chock, Bryce Aisaka, Egan Atkinson and Dean Ushijima, led by teacher Richard Rankin, prepared for the competition by holding daily research sessions and tracking current events in the business world. Each won $3,000 and a trophy.
"They jumped out of the starting block and never looked back," said Rankin, who has taught at Iolani for 12 years and was recognized in 2001 as the Nasdaq Economics Teacher of the Year.
NYSE BIDS FOR EUROPE MARKET
NEW YORK — The New York Stock Exchange ratcheted up its fight to become the world's first trans-Atlantic stock trading center yesterday, making a $10.2 billion cash-and-stock bid for European exchange operator Euronext NV — an offer that Euronext called the best on the table.
A combination of NYSE Group Inc. and Euronext would create a $21 billion company called NYSE Euronext with trading in stocks, corporate bonds, futures, options, derivatives and commodities on two continents. The move would extend the reach of each exchange and give the NYSE a dominance also sought by rival Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., although the average investor would probably feel little impact.
THEME-PARK RIVAL BOUGHT
CINCINNATI — Cedar Fair LP will have a more national presence in the regional theme-park business with its announcement yesterday that it will buy Paramount Parks Inc. from CBS Corp. for $1.24 billion in cash.
Industry experts say the acquisition should make Cedar Fair the third-largest theme-park operator in North America in terms of attendance, behind first-place Walt Disney Co. and second-place Six Flags Inc. It will also mean that all of Ohio's major theme parks will be owned by one company.
