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Amfac president
quits; two top
execs selected

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Amfac/JMB Hawaii Inc. today announced the appointment of two top executives from its parent Northbrook Corp. to run the business. Gary Grottke, president since 1997, has left and has been replaced by Gary Nickele.

Nickele was a longtime executive of Northbrook, an affiliate of the company that bought Amfac Inc. in 1988, Chicago-headquartered JMB Realty Corp. He has been involved in a number of Amfac activities over the years, the company said.

Supporting Nickele will be Steve Lovelette, who today was named executive vice president. Lovelette, who has had 12 years with Northbrook, has also been involved with Amfac during that time, in particular with its Royal Kaanapali Golf Courses on Maui.

Lovelette is now in charge of Amfac's golf business and is also responsible for the company's community-based planning and development of land at Kaanapali. The company said Lovelette has extensive experience in developing master-planned communities.

Grottke, who has been working with Chicago-based Quintus Resorts as co-president in addition to his work at Amfac, said he has chosen to work full time at Quintus, where he is co-president.

He has been involved in Quintus projects for more than two years. Quintus owns three timeshare resorts, including one in Hawaii, the Hanalei Bay resort on Kauai.

Grottke said he got interested in timeshare while planning the Kaanapali Ocean Resort in West Maui. Amfac later sold the land for that project to Starwood Vacation Ownership, which is developing its own timeshare resort on the property.

In recent years, Amfac has been getting out of the money-losing sugar business, culminating with the announcement last fall of the closing of two mills on Kauai. Its 17,000 acres on Kauai were offered for sale but the land has not yet been sold. Amfac also owns 5,000 acres on Maui.

The company has some diversified agriculture operations.

Amfac lost $25.8 million in the first nine months of last year, up from a loss of $4.3 million in the equivalent period of 1999, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Although it is not a public company, Amfac discloses its finances through the SEC because of the notes that were sold to the public to finance its original acquisition by JMB Realty.