Net falls at
mac nut company

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

ML Macadamia Orchards LP today reported a sharp drop in third-quarter net profit to $329,000, or 4 cents a share, from $14.1 million, or $1.86 a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

But the company, formerly known as Mauna Loa Macadamia Partners LP, said the difference had nothing to do with its day-to-day operations.

In the third quarter of 1997, the company said it had a one-time $13.8 million income item from a deferred tax credit. There was no such item in the 1998 quarter.

Macadamia nut sales were up 13 percent at $3.48 million in the latest quarter, compared with $3.08 million reported for the 1997 third quarter. Operating income in the 1998 quarter, $292,000, was down 5 percent from operating income of $307,000 in the year-earlier period.

The Kau region of the Big Island, where ML Macadamia has nearly half its 4,000-plus acres of orchards, continues to suffer from drought and that will adversely affect production for the rest of 1998 and likely into 1999, the company said.

Kau received 5.5 inches of rain in the first nine months of this year, compared with 39 inches in the same period last year, the company said.

The business changed its name recently, in part to show that it a partnership separate from privately owned Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp., which markets its product.