Billionaire David Murdock and his company, Castle & Cooke Inc., are in discussions to sell Lanai in a deal that could alter the future of the former Pineapple Island and dramatically reduce Murdock’s land ownership in Hawaii.
Castle & Cooke officials met with Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa late last week to say the company is talking with a buyer about a potential sale.
Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz and Arakawa confirmed the meetings. Arakawa said it was a "serious consideration" by Castle & Cooke that could result in a decision soon.
No one at the meetings would disclose the prospective buyer’s name, though some people are speculating that the island would appeal to other billionaires with ties to the island, such as Oracle CEO Larry Ellison or Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
Castle & Cooke, which owns 98 percent of Lanai, would not even confirm a sale effort, but said the company routinely considers offers for assets. "We continue to explore our options, which could include selling Lanai assets," said Carleton Ching, a spokesman for the California-based company’s Hawaii subsidiary.
Murdock has had a long and bumpy run as owner of Lanai, uprooting the island’s pineapple industry in favor of luxury resort and housing development where costs have exceeded returns.
Most recently, Murdock has been frustrated with some vocal Lanai residents opposing his plan for developing windmills to deliver electricity to Oahu and potentially offset past financial losses.
Murdock, a corporate raider with diverse holdings from transportation equipment leasing to biotechnology park development, acquired his initial stake in Lanai when he rescued publicly traded Castle & Cooke, one of Hawaii’s oldest companies, from bankruptcy in 1985 and became its chairman and chief executive.
Castle & Cooke’s ownership of Lanai stemmed from an acquisition James Dole made in 1922 to expand his Hawaiian Pineapple Co. Ltd. and establish the world’s largest pineapple plantation.
Murdock jolted Lanai’s plantation community by announcing he would end pineapple production by 1993, and he pursued more aggressive development of real estate that produced two luxury hotels on Lanai surrounded by hundreds of resort homes.
The 102-room Lodge at Koele in the middle of the island just above Lanai City opened in 1990, and a year later it was followed by the oceanfront 249-room Manele Bay hotel.
But luxury home sales were slow on the small island during the 1990s, a decade of economic stagnation. Lanai didn’t appear to be a good investment for Murdock, but in 2000 he bought out the stake in Castle & Cooke that he didn’t already own for $675 million, acquiring total control and freeing the company from public shareholder pressure.
Even with rising tourism and a real estate boom during much of the past decade, Lanai remained a money-loser for Murdock. He has reported that the island produced annual losses roughly between $20 million and $30 million from 2006 to 2010.
Willie Kennison, Maui division director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union representing much of Lanai’s hotel industry workers, said Murdock has been good to workers on the island where Castle & Cooke employs close to a third of the roughly 3,000 residents.
If Murdock sells Lanai, Kennison expects it will be only to someone else who commits to being a good steward.
Ching, the Castle & Cooke Hawaii spokesman, said Murdock has had his critics, but he believes Lanai would be worse off had Murdock not stepped in.
"He’s had a long run there, and I think it’s been positive," Ching said.
