Maui Land net falls 58%

Star-Bulletin staff

Maui Land & Pineapple Co. today reported a 58 percent drop in third-quarter earnings.

But the decline was due to extra profits resulting from land sales in the year-earlier quarter, the company said.

For the period ended Sept. 30, the Kahului-based company reported net income of $401,000, or 6 cents a share, compared with $960,000, or 13 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose less than 1 percent to $37.7 million.

Maui Land said the 1997 results included $650,000 in net income from land sales. Excluding that income, profits from the latest quarter would have been up nearly 30 percent from a year ago.

The company said the improved results were largely due to increased operating profits from its Kapalua resort.

The company's pineapple operations posted higher revenues but operating profits fell 9 percent for the quarter, Maui Land said.

Its commercial and property segment also reported lower operating profits and revenues.

For the first nine months of 1998, Maui Land posted a profit of $218,000 on revenues of $96.3 million, compared with a $2.6 million gain on revenues of $99.4 million in the year-earlier period.

The sale of a partial interest in land at Kapalua added $2.6 million in profits last year.

---

Dole shares tumble 14%
following profit warning

Bloomberg News

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. -- Dole Food Co. shares fell as much as 17 percent after the world's top marketer of fresh produce warned third-quarter profit will be far less than expected because of a worldwide drop in banana prices.

Russian imports dropped after that nation's currency collapsed in value. That forced Dole to ship the fruit to other markets including Eastern Europe, pushing down prices there by 40 percent.

Dole joins other consumer-goods companies -- including RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., Coca-Cola Co. and Philip Morris Cos. -- whose sales have been hurt in Russia. Dole's problems, though, are exacerbated because bananas, its biggest product, have a limited shelf life and must be shipped elsewhere or be destroyed.

Dole fell $5, or 14.4 percent, to $29.621/2 in New York Stock Exchange trading. Dole late yesterday said it will earn 35 percent less than the 40 cents it made in last year's third quarter, putting its profit at about 26 cents a share. The company had been expected to make 47 cents for the quarter.

The company also warned its results for the year will drop 20 percent.