BRIEFCASE BUILDING ACTIVITY GROWING IN 2004.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

BURBANK - California's construction volume for the first 10 months of 2004 totaled $65.5 million, up 10.6 percent from the same period last year, and should grow 1.7 percent in 2005, an industry expert said Monday.

Statistical data gathered by the Burbank-based Construction Industry Research Board for the month of October show total construction volume at $6.5 billion, down 4.1 percent from the previous month.

Instafi.com loses its lenders license

IRVINE - Regulators on Monday revoked the state finance lenders license of Irvine-based Instafi.com, which abruptly ceased business late last year.

The revocation order, which also applies to company President Sean R. Roberts, is effective immediately and brings to a close the action initiated by the California Department of Corporations on Jan. 26, said the agency's Debbie O'Donoghue.

The Department of Corporations received a letter from Instafi last December 26, stating that it had ceased doing business effective immediately, had transferred about 200 pending loans to another servicer and was applying to surrender its license, O'Donoghue said.

The department requested information from Instafi to adequately protect the public and Instafi's borrowers, and to facilitate the orderly closure of the business, O'Donoghue said.

T-bill rates reach three-year high

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities rose in Monday's auction.

The Treasury Department sold $19 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 2.195 percent, up from 2.155 percent last week. An additional $17 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 2.395 percent, up from 2.365 percent.

The three-month rate was the highest since Oct. 15, 2001, when the bills sold for 2.200 percent. The six-month rate was the highest since Sept. 17, 2001, when the rate was 2.570 percent.

Ex-director: Ovitz transfer ruled out

GEORGETOWN, Del. - A former Walt Disney Co. director testified Monday that retaining former Disney President Michael Ovitz in another position at the entertainment giant, instead of firing him as its president in late 1996, would have had a ``detrimental'' effect on the company and its stock price.

Richard A. Nunis, the ex-chairman of Disney's parks and resorts and a former Disney director, said he told chief executive Michael Eisner that he fully supported the decision to fire Ovitz in a phone conversation a few days before it was announced publicly in mid-December 1996. Nunis said that phone conversation was the first time Eisner told him that Ovitz was being terminated.