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One of the oldest corporate landowners in the islands is whittling away its holdings. Amfac Hawaii is selling off its prime asset - thousands of acres of land - to pay down debt and generate capital.
However, in its recent annual report, Amfac acknowledges "a number of current factors that have negatively impacted the company's development and land sale activities" - including its operating deficits.
Company officials, though, insist the sell-off should not be seen as the end for what was once the state's largest company. Selling off land is "not a move to liquidate Amfac," says company spokesman Jim Boersema. "In fact, Amfac has sold various parcels of land for nearly a decade - mostly land that was non-producing, and more recently, former sugar land that is no longer needed by the company."
Another of Hawaii's major corporate landowners has fared differently. Alexander & Baldwin, another of Hawaii's "Big Five" companies, holds approximately 90,000 acres of land.
"We have actively developed and exchanged land," says John Kelley, spokesman for Alexander & Baldwin.
"We have had financial wherewitall and resources to do that. Amfac's debt situation has made difficult to move in the marketplace," Kelley says.
"Our circumstances are so different. Basically the economy didn't give any of us much room to maneuver. We have had good opportunities and good management in the 1990s. We've been able to be light on our feet and move quickly, and have done as well as anybody could do under those circumstances," Kelley says.
Amfac has trimmed its holdings to approximately 24,000 acres of land in Hawaii by selling off more than...