Maui Land & Pineapple Co.’s loss widened in the first quarter as costs and expenses rose by $918,000 from the year-earlier period due to one-time events associated with the company’s recent leadership transition.
The company completed a leadership transition effective April 1 by appointing Race Randle as chief executive officer and Scot Sellers as chair of the board of directors.
Randle has decades of experience creating mixed-use master- planned communities. Most recently he was an executive vice president at Lendlease, leading a partnership with Google on a $15 billion undertaking to transform Google’s California landholdings in San Jose, Sunnyvale and Mountain View into mixed-use communities. Randle also previously served as senior vice president of The Howard Hughes Corp., where he played a role in redeveloping Ward Village in Honolulu.
Sellers served as chairman and CEO of Archstone, one of the world’s largest multifamily housing companies, and is also a director for Howard Hughes Corp.
“Maui Land & Pineapple Company owns and operates a portfolio of over 22,000 acres of land, iconic commercial assets, and world class resort properties,” Randle said in a statement. “In the coming days and months, I will continue to meet with community stakeholders to complete a comprehensive review of our business to develop a clear path forward to improve asset utilization, create added value for our residents, visitors, and shareholders, and grow our positive impact on Maui.”
The Kapalua-based company’s loss widened to $1.4 million, or a loss of 7 cents a share, compared with a loss of $618,000, or 3 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue rose 2.2% to $2.3 million from $2.2 million.
Costs and expense jumped 33.4%, by $918,000, to $3.7 million from $2.8 million in the year-earlier period.
The company’s costs and expenses rose because all outstanding stock grants of the company’s former chairman and CEO, Warren Haruki, became fully vested upon his resignation. As a result, share-based compensation expense of about $700,000 was recognized as of March 31. Costs related to the hiring of the company’s new CEO were approximately $200,000 during the quarter.
Shares of Maui Land rose 12 cents Thursday to $12.36 before the results were announced.
FIRST-QUARTER LOSS
$1.4 million
YEAR-EARLIER LOSS
$618,000
