Business Highlights

SAN FRANCISCO — A major shareholder of Sharper Image Corp. on Thursday set out to oust the company’s board of directors in a bid to retool the ailing retailer of high-tech gadgets and other offbeat merchandise.

The proposed shake up boosted the company’s sagging stock price by more than 22 percent.

The Knightspoint Group, which recently acquired a 12.8 percent stake in Sharper Image, hopes to replace the San Francisco-based company’s seven-member board with a slate that includes veteran executives and retailing consultants.

It marked the second time in the past two weeks that Knightspoint has sought to overhaul a company’s board. The group wants Ashworth Inc., a maker of golf apparel, to add three more directors.

The looming showdown over Sharper Image and its 192-store chain, would culminate with a shareholder vote at the company’s annual meeting, usually held in June.

The rebellion threatens to topple Sharper Image’s longtime chief executive, Richard Thalheimer, who started the company in 1977 to sell a lightweight watch for joggers. Thalheimer’s father, Alan, also has been on the company’s board since 1981.

Knightspoint Group’s director nominees include a candidate, Jerry W. Levin, who says he is prepared to take over as Sharper Image’s CEO. Levin previously has been CEO at Revlon Inc., Sunbeam Corp. and the Coleman Co. "Sharper Image is a great consumer brand,” Levin said Thursday. "However, the company’s results have demonstrated that its strategy has stagnated.”

BlackBerries to merge with corporate phone networks

NEW YORK — The maker of BlackBerry e-mail devices, fresh from settling a lawsuit that threatened its very business, is buying a company that will allow it to marry BlackBerries with corporate phone systems.

"It makes your BlackBerry perform just like your desktop phone,” said Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of the company behind the BlackBerry, Research in Motion Ltd. RIM announced Friday that it has bought Ascendent Systems, a San Jose, Calif., company that makes software for connecting cell-phones to a corporate phone switch, or PBX.

Mortgage rates jump: Rates on 30-year mortgages jumped to the highest level in 2 1/2 years this week, driven higher by inflation worries in financial markets. Rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.37 percent this week.

That was up sharply from a nationwide average of 6.24 percent last week and left 30-year rates at the highest level since they averaged 6.44 percent the week of Sept. 5, 2003.

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