Maui Pine assets sold for quarter of worth – Pacific Business News

The group that bought the assets of Maui Pineapple Co. paid a fraction of what the company’s equipment, materials, supplies and customer lists were worth, according to a filing with federal regulators.

The partners of Haliimaile Pineapple Co. acquired the equipment and other items for $680,000, to be paid over five years. The assets had a book value of $3 million, according Maui Land and Pineapple Co.’s filing this week with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission

Haliimaile Pineapple will also pay ML&P (NYSE: MLP) between $20,000 and $30,000 a year to use the Maui Pineapple trade marks, trade names such as Maui Gold, and logos, and will lease 950 acres and 59,000 square feet of office and warehouse space at market rents, which is about $420,000 per year, for 20 years. The new company hired 66 workers of the 206 workers who were terminated by Maui Pine on Dec. 31, which will decrease ML&P’s severance costs, the company said in the filing.

Maui Pine was at a discount – Hawaii Business – Starbulletin

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A pineapple startup bought equipment from the shuttered Valley Isle operation for $680,000

By Dave Segal

Haliimaile Pineapple Co., the startup that is resurrecting the pineapple industry on Maui, purchased Maui Pineapple Co.’s operating equipment, materials, supplies and customer lists for a discounted price of $680,000, and also agreed to other financial terms to keep the agricultural business alive on the Valley Isle.

Financially ailing Maui Land & Pineapple Co., which sold its pineapple operations to Haliimaile Pineapple last month as part of a broad-based restructuring, said in a regulatory filing yesterday that the net book value (assets minus liabilities) of the equipment and other items—which are due to be paid by Haliimaile Pineapple over five years—was about $3 million.

Maui Pineapple erntet letzten Ertrag – Frucht Portal

Maui Pineapple erntet letzten Ertrag

Geschlagen durch ausländischen Wettbewerb und eine stockende Wirtschaft, beendet der letzte große Ananaserzeuger auf Hawaii, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc., seine letzte Ernte nach 97 Jahren in dem Landwirtschaftsgeschäft. Der letzte Ertrag wurde am 23. Dezember auf den Feldern bei Haliimaile geerntet, was das Ende einer Ära markiert, in der einst Ananas ein großer Arbeitgeber in dem Staat war. Maui Pineapple pflanzte seine ersten Früchte 1912 auf West-Maui.

Maui Pineapple Production Resurrected

January 07, 2010
HYPER LOCAL

Reports of pineapple’s demise on Maui were, if not greatly exaggerated, at least premature. From the ashes of Maui Land & Pineapple’s defunct agricultural arm rises Haliimaile Pineapple Company, a venture backed by several former ML&P executives. In a December 31 release, CEO Darren Strand said the company "brings new hope…by immediately saving 65 agricultural jobs with an expectation of adding more in the future." Of course, the issues that doomed ML&P—and plantation-style ag in general—still loom, but hey, it’s the New Year. If you can’t be optimistic now, when can you?…

Loyal Bushies in the Honolulu First Circuit and Maui Pineapple Production Resurrected

Maui Pineapple Co. executives start new company | The Packer

Five former Maui Pineapple Co. executives are working with Pardee Erdman of Ulupalakua Ranch to take over pineapple operations from Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc.

The new company, Haliimaile Pineapple Co. Ltd., plans continue to grow and market fresh pineapple under the established Maui Gold Brand. The company purchased and licensed key assets, and leased farm land, equipment, and buildings from ML&P with plans to serve the Hawai’i market, according to a news release. The company officially opened Jan. 1.

Key shareholders and directors in the new company include Pardee Erdman, owner of Ulupalakua Ranch; Doug Schenk, former president of Maui Pineapple Co.; former vice presidents of MPC, Doug MacCluer and Ed Chenchin; and current operating directors for MPC, Darren Strand and Rudy Balala.

Haliimaile Pineapple Co. plans consolidate growing, fresh fruit packing facility, cold storage and shipping operations in Haliimaile. It sells fresh pineapple to local hotels, restaurants, and supermarkets and plans to increase  direct-to-consumer business.

Maui Pineapple Co. executives start new company | The Packer

USA – New lease for pineapple company

Haliimaile Pineapple Co. Ltd. on Saturday officially stepped into the void left when Maui Land & Pineapple Co. shut down its farming operations, with crews taking to the fields for the company’s first harvest.

After helping harvesters, drivers, mechanics and other workers clock in by hand Saturday morning, Haliimaile Pine partner Doug Schenk said the company was ready to work the land.

>But he implored Hawaii shoppers to do their part to help the new venture succeed – one sweet bite at a time.

"We need the consumer to go out and buy Maui Gold," Schenk said. "We need the community and the citizenry to go out and buy this product across the state. If people don’t see it in the stores they need to ask those stores to stock Maui Gold.

"We need to get our case volume up for this to work. These are wonderful people. I love ’em. This is all about jobs and preserving open space. That’s what it’s about, buy local. We should support our local farmers."

The financially struggling ML&P announced in November that it would shut down pineapple at the end of 2009. On New Year’s Eve, officials with Haliimaile Pine said they had reached an agreement with the century-old company to take over 1,000 acres of its fields and use its equipment to continue farming.

USA – New lease for pineapple company

Pineapple revival – Starbulletin.com

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Pineapple revival

A new, smaller company picks up where Maui Land & Pineapple Co. left off

By Rob Shikina

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 03, 2010

About 65 workers arrived at dawn yesterday for the first day of work at a new though much smaller pineapple company that will allow fresh pineapple farming and packing to continue on Maui.

Haliimaile Pineapple Co. began operations yesterday on 1,000 acres of leased land with some equipment purchased from Maui Land & Pineapple Co.

All workers were former employees of Maui Pineapple, which shut down last week after 97 years in operation. The company laid off about 285 employees and transferred 130 to partner companies.

Yesterday, workers picked more than 41 tons of pineapples in five hours.

"This morning was a real chicken-skin moment," said Rudy Balala, Haliimaile vice president, who worked at Maui Land & Pineapple for more than 30 years. He began talking with Darren Strand, a former Maui Pineapple operating director, about running their own operation a year ago.

"Our thing is trying to run as lean as possible and have everybody involved in the operations," Balala said. "We want everybody to be cross-trained."

Because volume is much lower than Maui Pineapple’s, the company needs a small crew that can do everything, he said.

Some workers who haven’t picked pineapple for more than 10 years were picking pineapple yesterday, Balala said.

"Everybody wants this company to succeed and they’re really showing it, especially on the first day," he said.

Tomorrow, all employees will go to Kahului to train and pack pineapples.

"There were a lot of smiles, a lot of happy people," said Doug Schenk, a shareholder in the new company. "A lot of people raring to go."

Maui-grown pineapple lives on! New company to continue growing Maui Gold brand. | Hawaii® Magazine

by: Derek Paiva

Fresh, whole Maui-grown pineapple will not be a relic of Hawaii’s past after all.

The World knows that Maui produces the BEST Pineapple!
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A consortium of Maui-based investors on Thursday announced the formation of Haliimaile Pineapple Co. Ltd., a new company that would immediately continue farming and harvesting the sweet and juicy fruit on 1,000 acres of Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. land.

Haliimaile is slated to begin operations today.

On Nov. 3, Maui Land & Pineapple announced that it would shut down all operations at its Maui Pineapple Co. subsidiary at the end of 2009 after 97 years of growing the signature Hawaii fruit on the island. The largest grower of pineapple left in Hawaii, Maui Pineapple Co. sold fresh whole pineapple in stores and online under its Maui Gold brand. Maui Pineapple’s last harvest was completed on Dec. 23.

PINEAPPLE: ML&P throws in towel – The Maui News

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LOOKING BACK 2009

By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer

Modern Heros rescue Pineapple industry
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After a century in agriculture, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. got out of the pineapple business for good as 2009 drew to a close.

About 285 workers lost their jobs when pineapple cultivation ended, but the shutdown was just the culmination of a long year of changes for a company struggling just to stay in business.

Early in the year, the company sold its Plantation Golf Course for $50 million to pay down some of its mounting debts. In February, ML&P eliminated 100 jobs at the Kapalua Resort and at its Kahului headquarters in yet another round of layoffs, with the remaining employees taking a 10 percent pay cut. Then in May, President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Webber resigned after just six months on the job, being replaced by board Chairman Warren Haruki as interim CEO.

The company continued to lose money through the year, reporting in October that it had lost $92.9 million in the first three quarters of 2009 – greater than the $71.6 million it lost for all of 2008. Much of the losses was attributed to the plummeting value of ML&P’s real estate investments, and the October report also revealed that the company had lost all of the money it had originally invested in its Kapalua Bay Holdings venture.

Still, nobody was quite ready to hear the news in November that the company was shutting down its pineapple operations.