The charitable trust owns 4.1 percent of the upscale department store chain's parent, Saks Holdings Inc., whose shares soared with the successful launch of its initial public offering Wednesday.
The stock, priced late Tuesday at $25 per share, closed Wednesday at $34.621/2 on the New York Stock Exchange, a 38.5 percent increase.
That gave Bishop Estate a paper profit of $24.1 million for the 2.5 million Saks shares it owns. Saks' stock closed on Thursday at $32.50 a share but regained 50 cents on Friday to close at $33.
The estate stressed that it has not realized any gains because it has not sold any of its stock.
"We're very pleased with the results there," said Kekoa Paulsen, spokesman for the estate. "(But) bottom line, it's a paper gain."
Paulsen said the estate is positive about Saks' future and its current management, noting that the investment in Saks is for the long-term. Bishop Estate purchased its stake in Saks Holdings back in March 1993 from Bahrain-based Investcorp S.A. for about $50 million.
Bishop Estate, the state's largest private landowner, lists about $1 billion in assets but critics have said that figure may be as high as $10 billion.
Founded in 1867, Saks Fifth Avenue was privately held and operated as a division of Gimbel Bros. Inc. until it was purchased by British giant BAT Industries Plc in 1973. In 1990, BAT sold Saks to Investcorp for $1.6 billion.
The retailer currently owns 45 Saks Fifth Avenue department stores, 19 Off 5th outlet stores and the Folio catalog.
In Hawaii, Saks operates an off-price outlet at the Waikele Center and has expressed an interest in opening a department store in central Honolulu.
In Wednesday's public offering, Investcorp sold 16 million shares in Saks, or about a quarter of the retailer's equity. Saks said it would use the proceeds to pay down debt, which it listed as nearly $976 million.
An offering prospectus said that Bishop Estate's 4.1 percent stake represents the fifth largest block of the company's stock. Investcorp is the largest with 17.3 percent of the Saks' equity, followed by SIPCO Ltd., a Cayman Island-based investor, with 17.28 percent.