Campbell trustees’
income up; all waive
more than $1 million
The estate had revenues of
By Rick Daysog
$154.5 million in 1997, about
half from mainland properties
Star-Bulletin
The four trustees of the Estate of James Campbell each earned $852,000 in commissions in 1997, a 1.4 percent increase from 1996.
But trustees C. Dudley Pratt Jr., who retired at the end of 1997, and Clint Churchill, David Heenan and Paul Cassiday waived more than $1 million each.
Trustee Tom Leppert replaced Pratt at the start of 1998 and was not included in the report for 1997, which was filed Thursday in state Probate Court.
Meanwhile, the trustees petitioned the state Circuit Court for instructions for selecting a successor to Cassiday, who retired on Thursday after reaching the estate's mandatory retirement age of 70.
According to the petition, some members of the Campbell family, the estate's beneficiaries, want a new trustee named to replace Cassiday, while others want to eliminate the position of a fourth trustee. The current trustees took no position on the issue.
The trustees' 1997 compensation was a $12,000 increase from the $840,000 that each board member received in 1996.
By comparison, the five trustees of Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate each received of $844,600 in commissions in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1997. The Bishop Estate trustees each waived about $435,400 that they were entitled to under state law.
Under Hawaii trust law, each trustee of the $2 billion Campbell Estate was entitled to as much as $1.9 million last year.
Campbell Estate's filing in Probate Court also included a copy of its audited financial statement by the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick L.L.P.
The statement noted that the estate generated more than $154.5 million in revenues in 1997, up 4.3 percent from the previous year's $148.1 million. About half of those revenues came from the estate's extensive mainland real estate holdings, which include 53 properties in 13 states. The trust's expenditures totaled $108.4 million, up from 1996's $101.5 million.
Minus costs, the estate in 1997 distributed $43.1 million to the various descendants of James Campbell, or slightly less the prior year's $43.4 million.
Established in 1900, the estate is a private, for-profit trust for the benefit of the heirs of Scottish seaman James Campbell. It is the state's 8th largest private landowner, with 70,800 acres in Hawaii.
