Castle & Cooke
nets $1.4 mil

Despite strong first-quarter
home sales, the company is worried
about the isle economy.

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Buoyed by some improvement in its Oahu residential real estate sales, Castle & Cooke Inc. today reported a first-quarter profit of $1.4 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with a loss of $532,000, or 3 cents a share, in 1997's first quarter.

The company said the 1997 quarter had included a payout of $1,050,000 in dividends on preferred stock and since then all the preferred stock has been redeemed so there will be no more preferred stock dividends. Without that negative item, Castle & Cooke would have shown a profit of $518,000 in the 1997 quarter.

Revenues of $57.3 million in the latest quarter were up 5.7 percent from $54.2 million in the year-earlier period.

"While we are pleased with the increase in new orders at our Oahu residential operations, the recent events in Asia and, in particular, those in Japan, create uncertainty and cloud the outlook for an economic recovery for Hawaii," said David H. Murdock, chairman and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles-based company.

The company said it delivered 78 homes on Oahu during the latest quarter, compared with 73 in the year-earlier period, and has a backlog of 81 Oahu orders, compared with 64 a year earlier.

On the mainland, Castle & Cooke sold no homes in the latest quarter and only one in the year-earlier quarter but it sold 152 vacant lots in the 1998 quarter and ended the period with a backlog of 761 homesites on order. In the 1997 quarter, the company sold 208 mainland homesites and ended the period with a backlog of 261 lots on order.

Murdock said the company had an operating profit of $567,000 from its Lanai resorts in the 1998 quarter, before luxury home sales and depreciation, compared with a loss of $1.6 million in the year-earlier period.

The company said it has sold 10 townhouses at Manele Bay for a total of $13.6 million and eight of those will be delivered before the end of the year.