Case boosts investment in ML&P

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AOL founder could have majority stake after stock sale done

By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer

WAILUKU – AOL co-founder Steve Case added to his investment in Maui Land & Pineapple Co. this week by purchasing an additional 4.27 million shares under a rights offering by the company.

Case acquired the stock at a price of $3.85 per share, to invest another $16.5 million into the struggling company, according to a report filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

The sale was made under a plan by ML&P to raise cash by selling 10.4 million new shares to existing stockholders.

The company made a separate announcement this week that it had completed the sale on the New York Stock Exchange.

The proceeds will be used to retire $40 million in convertible notes, giving the company some relief from its significant debt.

Under the offering, each stockholder was offered the right to purchase a limited number of the new shares, in proportion to the size of their previous stake in the company. Case purchased all of the shares that were offered to him.

But he could have access to as many as 6.1 million additional shares if the company’s other stockholders don’t sign up for the rights offering and shares set aside for them are left unsold. The company reported that Case indicated his interest in potentially acquiring all those shares if they were available.

In its report filed with the SEC, the company said Wednesday that it had not yet determined how the unsold stock would be allocated among the investors who wished to purchase it.

With the 7.75 million shares he now owns, Case currently holds a 41.2 percent stake in ML&P, a controlling interest in the company.

But the company said that, depending on how many of the additional shares are allocated to Case, an additional purchase could increase his stake in the company to more than 50 percent.

That could give him even more decision-making power than he already has.

A&B earnings hit $28.9M in ‘strong second quarter’

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Alexander & Baldwin Inc. said it earned $28.9 million, or 70 cents per share, in the second quarter.

President Stan Kuriyama called it “a strong second quarter” compared with the $12.6 million earned in the second quarter of 2009.

Revenue was $398.9 million, compared with $351.0 million for the year before.

On Maui, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. made a sharp rebound after a bad 2009, which had the A&B board of directors considering whether to continue in sugar.

For the first half – a more informative period for comparison than just the second quarter – operating profit in agribusiness (which includes Kauai Coffee) rose by $13.9 million and net profit edged into the black at $700,000. Agribusiness had lost a net $13.2 million in the first half of 2009.

HC&S shut down its mill for an unusually long refit and it reorganized its plantings, which have been affected by drought for several years. Operational improvements combined with better prices for raw sugar turned losses into profits.

For the January-June period, Maui Brand specialty sugar sales were down $2 million and molasses sales were down $1.3 million, but power sales were up $1.5 million. Coffee sales increased by $1.5 million as well.

The big gains came from raw sugar, whose output was 31 percent higher, primarily from better growing conditions.

ML&P nears deal to pay off $40 million debt

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Maui Land & Pineapple Co. has completed definitive agreements with all holders of $40 million of its debt to repurchase the notes.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday, the company said it had reached agreement with the last remaining noteholders on July 22. It had earlier stated that four-fifths of the creditors had agreed to the deal.

As a result, debt-laden ML&P hopes to retire a large chunk of its obligations that otherwise would have required it to go to financial markets to refinance the $40 million as early as next year. Considering the company’s money-losing status, refinancing would have been difficult and expensive.

Inability to replace the debt with new debt or retire it could have triggered incidents of default with other corporate loans.

In May, the board of directors authorized an additional 20 million shares to be offered to the creditors.

News : Farmworkers push for overtime pay : Half Moon Bay Review newspaper, San Mateo county, Ca

HMB workers head to Sacramento to present overtime bill

By Amy Julia Harris

Fifty-one displaced workers from Nurserymen’s Exchange took up a new labor crusade last week, marching to Sacramento to hand-deliver a bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. The bill would extend time-and-a-half pay for farmworkers after eight hours a day and lift a decades-old overtime exemption for agriculture workers. Under existing law, overtime pay for farmworkers kicks in after 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week. Farmworkers are currently the only hourly employees in the state not to receive overtime pay after eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.

Schwarzenegger has 12 days to respond to the bill, which has already passed through the state Senate and Assembly. If signed, the new overtime law takes effect Jan. 1, and could spell big changes for some of the 329 farms in San Mateo County.

Summary of MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC | Form 8-K

Form 8-K for MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC27-Jul-2010

Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement

Item 1.01 – Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement

Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (the “Company”) issued senior secured convertible notes in the aggregate principal amount of $40 million in July 2008 (the “Notes”). The Notes mature on July 15, 2013, bear interest at 5.875% per annum and are currently convertible into common stock of the Company at a conversion price of $30 per share.

As previously announced, the Company entered into Convertible Note Purchase Agreements, pursuant to which the Company has agreed to repurchase the Notes, with holders of Notes who hold, in the aggregate, $32.5 million of the principal amount of the Notes, or approximately 81% of all of the Notes currently outstanding.

On July 22, 2010, the Company entered into Convertible Note Purchase Agreements with the holders of the remaining outstanding Notes on the same terms. In total, the Company has entered into Convertible Note Purchase Agreements with the holders of Notes who hold, in the aggregate, 100% of all of the Notes currently outstanding.

Summary of MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC – Yahoo! Finance

UH gets grant to study irrigation, human health

A University of Hawaii professor has been awarded a $120,000 grant to jointly study irrigation and human health with an Israeli researcher.

Assistant Professor Tao Yan and his Israeli colleague Cytryn Eddie received the grant from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation.

Their two-year research project is expected to study how human activities like irrigating fields with reused wastewater affects the development of antibiotic resistance in soil.

They’re also due to study how irrigating with reused wastewater may affect human health.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Chairman C.S. Papacostas said Monday people need to understand these issues to find ways to their ecological footprint.

UH gets grant to study irrigation, human health – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Exploring Algae as Fuel

SAN DIEGO — In a laboratory where almost all the test tubes look green, the tools of modern biotechnology are being applied to lowly pond scum.

Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked.

Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains.

The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids and oils that can be sent to a refinery and made into diesel or jet fuel.

“We’ve probably engineered over 4,000 strains,” said Mike Mendez, a co-founder and vice president for technology at Sapphire Energy, the owner of the laboratory. “My whole goal here at Sapphire is to domesticate algae, to make it a crop.”

Field Day–Evaluating Low Rates of Roundup Promax on Goosegrass Control

To: Golf Course & Landscape Industries
From: Norman M. Nagata, Extension Agent

An herbicide test using low rates of Roundup Promax was conducted on goosegrass that exhibited resistance to Revolver, MSMS, and Sencor at Waiehu Municipal Golf Course. You are invited to a field day to see these results at 13 weeks after treatment.

Date: July 30, 2010 (Friday)
Time: 10:45 am to 12:00 pm
Place:
Meet at Waiehu Golf Course “Service Entrance” (6th tee) next to Waiehu Beach Park & Baseball Field located at the end of “Lower Waiehu Beach Road” at 10:45 am. We will then car-pool to the test site at the 17th tee.

Program

  • 11:00 – 11:15 am Overview of goosegrass control
  • 11:15 – 11:35 Roundup Promax & experimental protocol
  • 11:35 – 12:00 pm Observe & discuss Roundup results on goosegrass & common bermudagrass

Recertification credits will be offered for:

  • Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture Pesticide categories 1a, 3, 6 & 10
  • Golf Course Superintendents Assoc. of America

Deadline to register (and to apply for recertification credits) is July 29 (Thursday).

You can register by contacting nagatan@ctahr.hawaii.edu or by calling the Cooperative Extension Service at 244-3242 x230. Please provide your name, company & telephone number should there be any changes on this field day.

This project was partially supported by Monsanto Company and the County of Maui.

Mahalo to Ron Kubo, Superintendent at Waiehu Golf Course for making this test possible.

Dry conditions leave isle farms parched

Michelle Galimba has been moving her livestock across her 10,000-acre Kuahiwi Ranch to higher elevation in Kau on the Big Island in hopes of finding better pastures during a drought that is causing her business and others hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

“It’s pretty severe,” she said. “I’d say half of the pastures on our ranch is unusable or going to be unusable very shortly.

“They’re literally turning to dust. The soil’s drying up and blowing away.”

Galimba said South Point received 1.76 inches of rain from January through mid-July, compared with its usual 12 inches.

The National Weather Service said 2010 is bringing the worst drought on record for ranchers and farmers in some parts of the state, including Kau.

“If they don’t have more rainfall at a higher rate in the second half, it could be the driest year on record,” said Kevin Kodama, senior hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu.