Sugar Cane Category

Alexander & Baldwin to split into two separate companies

Published on December 1, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Alexander & Baldwin Inc. said today its board of directors has approved a plan to split the company into two separate companies, one focusing on real estate and agriculture and the other on shipping.

The two companies would be independent and publicly traded, the company said in a news release.

Under the plan, A&B shareholders will own one share of both A&B and Matson stock for each share of company stock owned. The separation is expected to be completed in the second half of 2012.

The announcement was made after the market closed. A&B’s shares rose $1.50 to $39.56 in after hours trading.

“Over the past decade, Alexander & Baldwin’s board of directors and management have periodically conducted strategic reviews, including an evaluation of the merits of separating into two companies,” said Walter Dods, A&B’s chairman. “After thorough evaluation, we have concluded that the increased size, capabilities and financial strength of both our land and transportation businesses now enable these operations to independently execute their strategies to maximize shareholder value.”

Honolulu-based A&B has grown substantially over the past decade. Its commercial real estate portfolio has increased by almost 50 percent to its present size of 7.9 million square feet, comprising 44 properties in Hawaii and eight mainland states. The portfolio of commercial properties generates a significant and stable source of cash flow for the company, and is an important source of capital for A&B’s real estate investment and development activity. Continue reading ‘Alexander & Baldwin to split into two separate companies’

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Snubbed, MP farmers start engineering college

Published on August 5, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Engineering college
Frustrated by govt’s apathy towards their demands of an engineering college, the farmers of Burhanpur, pooled money for 10 years & finally have an engineering college of their own.
BHOPAL: Frustrated by government’s apathy towards their demands of an engineering college, the farmers of Burhanpur, a small district adjoining Maharashtra, refused to give up: they pooled money for 10 years and finally have an engineering college of their own. This Independence Day, aspiring engineering students of Burhnapur and nearby areas will no more have to trudge to distant places; they will get their own institute.

“Our children have the right to dream of becoming engineers,” said Virendra Kumar Singh, farmer and one of the directors of the Naval Singh Cooperative Sugar Mill Ltd. “We approached leaders of political parties to help realize our dream. But even our MPs and MLAs set-up their private engineering colleges in Indore and Khandwa and other places,” Singh said.

In the year 2000, the thousands of sugar farmers of the cooperative gave up on pleading with their political masters. They decided to donate just Re 1 per quintal of sugarcane and build the college which would give an engineering degree to their children. Continue reading ‘Snubbed, MP farmers start engineering college’

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A&B project could bring 2K homes to Central Maui

Published on June 7, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


WAILUKU – A&B Properties has released for public review a draft environmental impact statement for Wai’ale, a master-planned community on about 545 acres in Central Maui.

While the project raises the prospect of the construction of more than 2,000 homes in one of Maui’s fastest-growing regions, the development also faces some steep challenges, particularly in gaining access to drinking water and sewage treatment.

A&B Vice President Grant Chun said the project’s tentative design was “informed by the standards and goals of the Maui Island Plan,” which is pending review by the Maui County Council.

The planning and entitlement process is expected to take “many years,” Chun said Monday. Project planners are at the start of working with state officials on the project’s environmental review before seeking a district boundary amendment, he said.

The property is on either side of East Waiko Road, with Kuihelani Highway to the east and Honoapiilani Highway and Waikapu to the west. It is bordered on the north by Maui Lani’s Legends and Traditions subdivisions and the Waikapu Stream to the south.

Plans call for building 2,550 single- and multifamily homes, with land set aside for commercial and retail space, offices, civic and other public facilities, including an 18-acre middle school, a community center, regional and neighborhood parks, and a possible wastewater treatment plant. Now, the land is fallow sugar cane fields, a plant nursery, portions of a cattle feed lot, sand stockpiles and vacant land, Continue reading ‘A&B project could bring 2K homes to Central Maui’

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Queensland’s sugar takes a foreign flavour in big industry shake-up

Published on June 3, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


TWO of the biggest and most established sugar mills in north Queensland are set to pass into foreign ownership.

Proserpine was sold yesterday to a Singapore company and Tully looks as though it will be sold to Chinese interests.

Both mills have been owned by growers since they were established and the ownership change represents one of the biggest shake-ups in the sugar industry since it was deregulated in 2006.

Sugar mills are highly capital-intensive, and grower-owned mills have been stretched financially in the past year as cyclones have battered north Queensland and the sugar crop.

In these circumstances, large international companies have the capacity to gain synergies by combining sugar mills in a way that smaller individual mills cannot.

The Chinese government-owned China Oil & Food company increased its takeover bid for Tully Sugar yesterday to $44 a share, valuing the mill at $136 million, and the Tully Sugar board recommended it be accepted.

But the recommendation was made “in the absence of a superior proposal”, leaving the way open for either US agribusiness Bunge or French-backed Mackay Sugar to increase their offers.

But the endorsement is still significant, as previously the board has recommended to its shareholders that no action be taken. Continue reading ‘Queensland’s sugar takes a foreign flavour in big industry shake-up’

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HC&S: Sugar ‘at the top,’ can anything knock it off?

Published on May 29, 2011 in Alternative Energy, Biofuels, General Ag News and Notes, Sugar Cane and Sustainability.


PUUNENE

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Hawaii will arrive on Maui this summer to work with Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. to study crops, growing conditions and other issues in developing biofuels on the island.

The 130-year-old plantation is working with federal and state partners to help determine not only its own future, but also the future of growing biofuel crops in Hawaii to power both the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet and private vehicles across the state. The end result could be the development of a biofuel refinery for HC&S, said company General Manager Rick Volner Jr.

The goal is to transition HC&S into a leading “energy farm,” and develop the resources to sell commercial jet and diesel fuels to the government and private consumers.

Success could guarantee that the company would continue to employ around 800 people, and perhaps even more, company officials said.

“There are no firm deadlines for this project, but the sooner we can decide, the easier it will be for the board of Alexander & Baldwin (HC&S’s parent company) to fund some of these products, and obviously we will need to make some capital investments,” Volner said last week. “But we’re more interested in making the right decision than when we make it.” Continue reading ‘HC&S: Sugar ‘at the top,’ can anything knock it off?’

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Mackay Sugar secures 30pc in Tully takeover

Published on May 29, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


DISTRIBUTOR and marketer Queensland Sugar has decided to sell its 19.9 per cent stake in Tully Sugar to takeover contender Mackay Sugar for $43 a share, sparking a fresh bidding war from two other interested parties, US giant Bunge and China’s state-owned Cofco.

The news came as Cofco announced the Foreign Investment Review Board had approved its deal to buy a 19.9 per cent stake in Tully and its decision to increase the holding.

On Friday, Mackay upgraded its offer for Tully by $2 to $43 a share (the same price offered by Bunge and Cofco), valuing Tully at $132.9 million.

The combined Queensland Sugar/Mackay holding in Tully now totals almost 30 per cent.

Cofco has a precommitment for a 19.9 per cent stake and Bunge has a small stake.

Mackay’s bid is backed by French-based commodity trader Louis Dreyfus, which has agreed to provide debt funding of up to $102m.

Tully is one of the last independent, grower-owned sugar mills in Australia and also owns residential properties in far north Queensland and other assets.

Mackay is the country’s second-biggest sugar milling company, owning three mills and a refinery in Queensland. Continue reading ‘Mackay Sugar secures 30pc in Tully takeover’

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Mackay Sugar formally lodges takeover offer for Tully Sugar

Published on May 26, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


MACKAY Sugar has formally lodged its $41 a share bid for Tully Sugar, even though US-based agribusiness giant Bunge and China’s state-owned Cofco have already revised their bids higher to $43 a share valuing Tully at $132.9 million.

Mackay’s bid is backed by French-based commodity trader Louis Dreyfus, which has agreed to provide debt funding of up to $102 million to help fund the offer.

Mackay is Australia’s second largest sugar milling company, operating three mills, a refinery, and producing molasses and electricity on the Queensland central coast south of Tully.

At stake is the ownership of one of the last independent grower-owned sugar mills in Australia and other assets including residential properties in the Far North Queensland town.

The Tully mill, whose operation is highly regarded in the industry, has a crushing capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of cane a year and produced 315,000 tonnes of raw sugar in 2002, before production started falling as a result of a series of poor crop seasons.

“By accepting Mackay Sugar’s offer, you are ensuring Tully Sugar’s business remains in Australian hands, managed by a professional grower-controlled company” that has a proven track record of working with growers to deliver higher prices and a more secure and diversified business while investing in the industry, Continue reading ‘Mackay Sugar formally lodges takeover offer for Tully Sugar’

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Brush fire burns sugar cane on Maui

Published on May 14, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


A brushfire burned about 10 acres of cane field in Paia early this morning, Maui County officials reported.

Firefighters responded to the 1:22 a.m. fire at the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. site on Baldwin Avenue between Paia Elementary School and Rainbow County Park, Maui County spokesman Rod Antone said.

Plantation workers helped firefighters battle the blaze, which was declared under control by 3:30 a.m., Antone said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The fire may have started close to Baldwin Avenue. The cane burned was close to harvest and the company may be able to salvage some of the crop, officials said.

Brush fire burns sugar cane on Maui – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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A&B’s agribusiness sector recovers but shipping down – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

Published on May 5, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Although its agribusiness sector continued its recovery in the first quarter, Alexander & Baldwin’s usual profit center, Matson Navigation Co., lost money, and the company reported a thin profit of $5.2 million, or 12 cents per share, Tuesday.

President Stanley Kuriyama said Matson couldn’t adjust its fuel surcharges fast enough to keep up with soaring oil prices.

Agribusiness, primarily Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., had an operating profit of $2.6 million, compared with a loss of $1.1 million in the first quarter of 2010.

It is difficult to compare quarter-to-quarter results for HC&S, since in the first quarter of 2010 the Puunene mill shut down for an extended overhaul and harvesting did not begin until the second quarter. But Kuriyama pointed out that the company’s agriculture operation has now experienced four straight quarters of profitability, following years of serious losses.

It is also difficult to compare quarter-to-quarter changes at Matson, because it signed a significant connecting carrier agreement with a large international carrier and opened a second service to China. Both increased business, but the startup costs for the second “string” of voyages to China resulted in a loss.

Hawaii container traffic was up to 34,000, from 31,400 the year before, partly indicating expansion in the island economy. Continue reading ‘A&B’s agribusiness sector recovers but shipping down – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News’

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Is Sugar Toxic?

Published on April 14, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.

The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. Continue reading ‘Is Sugar Toxic?’

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A&B long the target of takeovers

Published on April 10, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Alexander & Baldwin Inc. has been in business 141 years, and for most of that time the kamaaina company has stood on three legs, each representing a major industry closely tied to Hawaii — agriculture, shipping and real estate.

The stool has been pretty sturdy, enabling the Honolulu-based company to realize or improve gains from one industry with the help of another, or to rely on different legs to weather downturns in others.

But at times in A&B’s history, influential shareholders have questioned the structure and made attempts to sell off pieces of the publicly owned firm.

Two weeks ago, a new plan to dismantle the stool is suspected of being set in motion by New York hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who recently bought 10 percent of A&B with an associate to become the company’s largest shareholder.

Ackman hasn’t publicly detailed his intent, but said in a broad statement that he plans to hold discussions with A&B management, directors, other stockholders and other parties “concerning the business, assets, capitalization, financial condition, operations, governance, strategy and future plans” of the company.

A&B has said it is open to hearing Ackman’s ideas, but won’t comment on the subject of discussions. Continue reading ‘A&B long the target of takeovers’

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Alexander & Baldwin stock jumps 19% after talk of break up

Published on April 1, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Shares of Alexander & Baldwin stock soared 19 percent today to close up $8.82 at $54.47 following yesterday’s announcement that a New York hedge fund manager and a partner bought up shares to become A&B’s largest owner.

The closing price was the highest since Sept. 9, 2007, when A&B’s stock closed at $57.73 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bloomberg News reported that Wells Fargo Securities, which downgraded A&B’s stock last week, raised its expectations for the stock and estimated A&B’s “break up” value — that is splitting apart core divisions of ocean cargo transportation, commercial real estate and agribusiness potentially to be sold — at about $54 a share.

Stock analysts and some company insiders anticipate that the hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, will seek to break up A&B.

Ackman’s firm, along with former Pershing Square partner Richard McGuire of San Francisco-based Marcato Capital Management LLC, disclosed yesterday after the stock market closed that they recently bought $168 million of A&B’s stock to give them a 9.9 percent stake.

Ackman and McGuire paid an average of $41.04 for their shares, making their stake worth about $224 million at today’s closing price, or $56 million more than the average paid.

Alexander & Baldwin stock jumps 19% after talk of break up – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Stock buy foments talk of local firm’s breakup

Published on April 1, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


One of Hawaii’s last venerable Big Five companies, Alexander & Baldwin Inc., could be under pressure to break itself up.

A New York hedge fund manager known to agitate for change in his investment targets bought nearly 10 percent of A&B along with a partner, it was announced yesterday. The purchase triggered expectations the 141-year-old kamaaina company will be split into pieces to elevate stock value.

Neither A&B nor the hedge funds would disclose what the intent of the A&B stock purchase — a $168 million deal — might be yesterday.

“We expect to have a constructive dialogue with them as we do with all of our shareholders,” said Suzy Hollinger, A&B’s director of investor relations.

But stock analysts with insights to A&B and people with ties to the 2,300-employee company say the play almost certainly is a breakup of the conglomerate’s three core businesses — ocean cargo transportation, commercial real estate and agriculture.

“Are the parts worth more than the whole? That’s what this comes down to,” said local stock analyst Randy Havre, echoing views of two other analysts who closely follow A&B. Continue reading ‘Stock buy foments talk of local firm’s breakup’

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Mainland firms buy 9.9% stake in A&B

Published on March 31, 2011 in Coffee, General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Two mainland investment firms have combined to purchase a 9.9 percent stake in Honolulu-based Alexander & Baldwin Co., according to a regulatory filing today.

New York-based Pershing Square Capital Management LP, led by activist hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, bought an 8.6 percent stake and San Francisco-based Marcato Capital Management LLC, led by Richard McGuire, acquired a 1.3 percent stake.

Mainland firms buy 9.9% stake in A&B – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Alexander & Baldwin profits rise

Published on February 3, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


Alexander & Baldwin Inc. earnings were about flat in the last three months of 2010, but bigger gains earlier in the year enabled the diversified Honolulu-based company to more than double its full-year profit.

A&B reported 2010 net income of $92.1 million, up from $44.2 million the year before.

Fourth-quarter net income was $20.2 million, barely up from $20.1 million in the same quarter in 2009.

Revenue in the fourth quarter totaled $461.4 million, compared with $362.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Full-year revenue totaled $1.6 billion, up from $1.4 billion in 2009.

A&B said its profit was principally driven by ocean cargo transportation subsidiary Matson Navigation Co. operations in China, real estate sales and a turnaround in its sugar business on Maui.

Alexander & Baldwin profits rise – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Haina sawmill project is pau

Published on December 15, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.


A judge has ruled in favor of a lender in a foreclosure suit on a former Pacific Northwest logger who attempted to turn the former Haina sugar mill in Honokaa into a sawmill.

Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara entered judgment Dec. 8 against Haina Properties LLC and Robert J. Marr, known as “Barefoot Bob.” The ruling clears the way for a liquidation sale of the mill property.

Haina Mill Mortgage Lender LLC, a Delaware limited liability -company, filed the foreclosure suit in June 2009, claiming that Haina Properties and Marr — manager of Haina Properties and owner of the 49-acre mill property — defaulted on a $4.785 million loan taken out Sept. 27, 2007, plus an additional $379,000 borrowed May 2, 2008.

All told, Marr owes almost $6.2 million to Haina Mill Mortgage Lender, counting principal, interest, fees, taxes and expenses.

Also named as defendants in the suit were Kamehameha Schools and Hamakua Land Partnership LLP as owner and lessee, respectively, of Standard Oil Road, the access road to the mill. In addition, the county was named for property tax purposes.

Marr bought the 49-acre mill property for $3.3 million in October 2007. He told area residents that the mill — which closed as a sugar mill in 1994 — would provide 110 jobs paying $12 to $25 an hour, and would run in an environmentally-responsible manner. Continue reading ‘Haina sawmill project is pau’

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