HipCricket listed on London market

Pacific Northwest

HipCricket

Company listed on London market

HipCricket went public this week on AIM, the London Stock Exchange's market for growing companies, under the ticker HIP.

The Bellevue company, which helps radio and TV stations add text-messaging services to programs and advertisements, raised about $17 million in capital through the initial public offering and has a total market capitalization of $155.4 million.

The stock closed at 275 pence ($5.57) Thursday, up 13 pence, or nearly 5 percent, from the IPO price of 262 pence set Monday.

The company said it has aggressive growth plans that include selling its services to TV and radio and adding the companies and brands that advertise on the stations.

"The additional funding puts us in an excellent position to capitalize on the increasing opportunities ahead of us, providing a strong base to grow the company organically and also fund expansion in U.S. markets," said Ivan Braiker, HipCricket's chief executive.

Boeing

Company predicts more C-17 orders

Boeing predicts the U.S. Air Force will order as many as 14 more C-17 cargo jets, which would extend the plane's production into the next decade.

Boeing is funding parts purchases at its own expense in anticipation that the Air Force will add more C-17s to its 190-plane order. The company has delivered 170 planes already and may shut down production if additional orders don't come in.

"There will be more money for C-17 in the '08 supplemental for the war on terror," Boeing Defense Chief James Albaugh said Thursday at the Credit Suisse aerospace conference in New York. "We see 10 to 14 being ordered based on testimony from the Air Force and what we've heard on Capitol Hill."

Albaugh predicted the C-17 program will "continue well into the next decade."

Boeing

Hawaiian to buy Airbus airplanes

Hawaiian Airlines agreed to buy as many as 24 Airbus widebody jets, valued at $4.4 billion at list prices, to replace its aging Boeing fleet and allow it to fly longer routes.

The memorandum of understanding calls for acquiring six A330-200 jets and six A350XWB-800s, with options for the same number of each model, Hawaiian said Wednesday.

Hawaiian now flies 29 Boeing jets: 717s, which have been discontinued, and 767s, which Boeing plans to stop making and replace with the 787 Dreamliner.

Delivery will start in 2012 for the A330s and in 2017 for the A350s, Hawaiian said.

Amazon.com

Customers to share information online

Amazon.com on Thursday launched Askville.com, an information-sharing Web site where users can ask questions and answer queries from others.

The site, open to all of its customers, has been in beta testing since December 2006 and has already been open to a few users, the Seattle online retailer said.

Similar services are offered by Yahoo's Answers and other Web sites such as AnswerBank. Google also had an "Answers" section, which has been discontinued.

Safeco

Prices for coverage to go up next year

Safeco will raise prices on automobile, homeowner and business insurance next year to help reach profit targets.

The Seattle insurer's auto premiums will increase as much as 5 percent, mirroring the industry as a whole, Executive Vice President Mike Hughes said Thursday at the company's annual investor day in New York. Safeco will boost homeowner prices about 2 percent, and commercial insurance prices 3 to 5 percent, Hughes said.

Rising medical and legal expenses are driving up the cost of auto claims as a decades-long decline in the number of U.S. accidents may be reversing, according to preliminary industry figures.

Nation and World

Dell

Profit disappoints; shares drop 9.7%

Dell posted a profit that disappointed investors after computer orders from U.S. consumers declined, pushing the stock down 9.7 percent.

U.S. home PC purchases slumped 6 percent in the third quarter, signaling that Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell needs more time to woo back shoppers with the retail partnerships he struck this year. On Thursday, the company said it will incur more costs to revamp operations and cut jobs.

"Wall Street is getting impatient," said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "He's not delivering as much profit as the Street would like to see."

Dell fell $2.73 to $25.41 in extended trading after closing at $28.14. That would be the biggest decline since July 2006.

United Airlines

Third carrier joins in $20 fare boost

United Airlines raised most U.S. round-trip fares by $20 to offset climbing fuel costs, according to FareCompare.com.

The action means the three largest U.S. carriers now have adopted the increase, which was initiated by Delta Air Lines on Nov. 26. American Airlines matched the higher fares Wednesday.

Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines and US Airways haven't matched the change.

Sears Holdings

Feeble profit sends shares down 10.5%

Sears Holdings stumbled to its worst performance yet under Edward Lampert, earning just $2 million in a dismal third quarter that heightened questions about his strategy and Sears' future as a retailer, prompting a huge sell-off in its stock Thursday.

Sears blamed its 99 percent profit decline on stiff competition and economic factors that weakened margins and sales at its Sears and Kmart department stores. The company signaled little hope for improvement in the near future, either, in a challenging retail environment.

Sears, which earlier this week said it may buy out the rest of retro-themed retailer Restoration Hardware, narrowly avoided its first loss, with net income of a penny a share.

Wall Street pummeled Sears' stock amid a growing exodus of those who had believed Lampert, the hedge-fund guru who combined the two faltering chains in 2005, would figure out a way to turn the company around. Shares tumbled $12.25, or 10.5 percent, to close at $104.09 Thursday — down nearly half from their peak of $195.18 in April.

Freddie Mac

Mortgage defaults prompt stock sale

Freddie Mac, the second-biggest U.S. mortgage-finance company, sold $6 billion of nonconvertible preferred stock to bolster capital amid a deepening housing slump.

The stock will pay an 8.375 percent fixed dividend for five years and then shift to 7.875 percent or to 416 basis points above the three-month London interbank offered rate, Freddie Mac said in a statement Wednesday.

Losses from defaulted mortgages eroded Freddie Mac's core capital to only $600 million above the government-required minimum last quarter, prompting the company to sell shares and halve its dividend to 25 cents.

E-Trade

Hedge fund comes to rescue; CEO out

E-Trade Financial, which flirted with collapse amid the growing mortgage crisis, said Thursday it is getting a $2.55 billion cash infusion from Citadel Investment Group in a bid to revive the battered discount brokerage.

Citadel, one of the nation's largest hedge funds, plans to buy E-Trade's troubled asset-backed securities portfolio and take it off the brokerage's books. Hemorrhaging in that portfolio caused massive writedowns since the summer and triggered panic that further losses would push E-Trade into bankruptcy.

The deal also forced E-Trade's embattled chief executive, Mitch Caplan, out of the job he's held since 2003.

Compiled from Reuters, Bloomberg News, The Associated Press, and Seattle Times staff