ML&P reports doubts about its ability to continue

KAPALUA – Financial challenges facing Maui Land & Pineapple Co. are raising a “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” the company reports in its latest filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

Among a number of disclosures in the filing, a group of lenders has declared that a $280.5 million loan for the Kapalua Bay Holdings’ construction of the The Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences, Kapalua Bay is in default. ML&P has invested more than $50 million in cash and $25 million in land for the development project and has 51 percent ownership in the Bay Holdings company.

“The company’s cash outlook for the next 12 months and its ability to continue to meet its financial covenants is highly dependent on selling certain real estate assets in a difficult market,” the filing says. “If the company is unable to meet its financial covenants resulting in the borrowings becoming immediately due, the company would not have sufficient liquidity to repay such outstanding borrowings.”

While the company’s future appears ominous in its SEC filing, Tim Esaki, the company’s financial officer, said Friday that company officials “remain optimistic.”

Debt due for Ritz Kapalua

Estate now seeks resort foreclosure
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

In April 2009, the owners of The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua defaulted on the loans they had taken out to rebuild the hotel in 2007.

The amount owed, principal and interest, approached $300 million, but the lender, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in bankrupty itself, did not press the issue for another 16 months. This week, the Lehman estate in bankruptcy filed for foreclosure against Gencom Group and Whitehall Street Global Real Estate, claiming it is owed $255 million.

The move was reported by The Wall Street Journal.

How the principal was reduced over the past year is unknown. Many resorts in Hawaii are in default, but most do it in privacy. The Ritz-Carlton’s trouble became known because Maui Land & Pineapple Co. was a 16 percent partner, and as a regulated public company, had to disclose the default in its reports, which it did in May 2009.