Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
May 3, 2008
Dole puts 5,000 acres
in Wahiawa on market
in Wahiawa on market
By Andrew Gomes, Honolulu Advertiser
Dole Food Co. has expanded its effort to raise cash by selling Hawai'i land, and isputting 5,000 acres in Wahiawa on the market two months after agreeingto sell 2,000 acres on O'ahu to an unidentified buyer.
The California-based firm with deep roots in Hawai'i said it has hired commercial real estate firm CBRichard Ellis Inc. to market theproperty for sale.
Dole spokesman Marty Ordman and CB Richard Ellis officials declined to identify the property except to say it is inCentral O'ahu.
Most, if not all, of Dole's Central O'ahu land is in Wahiawa, according to county property records.
Ordman said the land is primarily zoned for agriculture and is leased to farmers growing crops or raising cattle, though some isfallow.
None of the land being put up for sale is farmed by Dole, which grows pineapples on 2,700 acres, and coffee and cacao on anadditional 195 acres.
The company owned by billionaire David Murdock has said it intends to continue itsagricultural operations in Hawai'i, but is shedding nonstrategic orunderperforming assets around the world.
O'ahu land held for sale by Dole represents roughly 25 percent of what the company owns on the island, most of which ispastureland, part of the forestry reserve or leased to others largelyfor farm use.
According to the most recent information from the state Data Book in 2006, Dole was the seventh-largest Hawai'i privatelandowner with 28,472 acres.
Dole's presence in Hawai'i dates back more than a century as the place where James Dole founded the companyin 1901 as Hawaiian Pineapple Co. and made pineapple productionHawai'i's second-largest industry.
Today Dole is still the second-largest pineapple producer in the state. Dole was also once a major sugarcane grower on O'ahu, butit exited the business when its Waialua Sugar Co. closed in1996.
Dole's land sale plan on O'ahu will add to thousands of acres of agricultural land in the state that has been on the market orsold in recent years.
Much of the prior selloff was the result of major pineapple producer FreshDel Monte Produce Inc. shutting down localoperations in 2006.
After Florida-based Del Monte quit pineapple production in Hawai'i, it returned 5,100 acres of leased land in Kunia to locallandowner JamesCampbell Co.
Campbell has sold or received bids for much of the property, including a $31.3million sale of 2,300 acres last year to Monsanto Co. for seed crop operations.
About 850 acres of Campbell's Kunia land is listed on the market for $9.2 million by CBRichard Ellis.
In 2004, Del Monte also quit farming pineapple on about 2,000 acres in Wahiawa leased from the George Galbraith Trust withan estimated value of $30 million to $50 million that thestate has proposed buying.
Hawai'i's largest pineapple producer, Maui Land & Pineapple Co., also has been sellingpieces of "noncore" land in recent years. The company, which owns morethan 25,000 acres on Maui and grows pineapple on roughly 4,000 acres,sold nearly 3,000 acres of mostly agricultural land in the past fewyears.
Dole disclosed in December that it intended to sell Hawai'i land, and in March agreed to sell 2,000 acres on O'ahu to anundisclosed buyer for $39 million in a deal expectedto close between July and September. That property also was notidentified by Dole but is leased to a seed corn producer.
Dole's move to sell land also is occurring outside Hawai'i and would help the financially struggling company pay off whatBloomberg News calculated to be $350 million in bonds maturingnext year.
A diverse food producer with global farming operations, Dole is the world's largest producer and marketer of fresh fruits,vegetables and cut flowers, and also markets a growing line of packagedand frozen foods.
Last year, the company reported a net loss of $58 million onrevenue of $6.9 billion, down from a $90 million losson revenue of $6.2 billion in 2006.
To raise cash, Dole last year sold $41.7 million of assets, and at the end of last year held another $76.2 million inassets for sale — including a fresh-cut flowerdistribution facility in Florida and more than 4,000 acres in Californiaproducing almonds, olives, citrus and grapes.
Comments
And the water? Flushing toilets? I guess monsanto should be right around the corner.