A&B earnings
soar 22.6 percent
Matson's strong operating profits
By Russ Lynch
helped bottom line
Star-Bulletin
Alexander & Baldwin Inc. today reported a 22.6 percent increase in its second-quarter profit as a strong boost in operating profit at its Matson Navigation Co. more than made up for dips in returns from property sales and food products.
Announcing the results today, the Honolulu-based company said the improvement at Matson was partly due to bigger loads as Hawaii businesses stocked up in advance of the July 1 expiration of longshore labor contracts. Also helping the overall A&B profit improvement were lower interest costs and lower corporate expenses, the company said.
For the three months through June 30, A&B reported a profit of $23.25 million, or 54 cents a share, up from $18.97 million, or 42 cents a share, in the 1998 quarter.
The results beat Wall Street analysts expectations sending the company's stock up $2.25, or 9.1 percent, to $27 in Nasdaq trading today.
Second-quarter revenues of $263.8 million were down 27.9 percent from $365.8 million in the year-earlier period, primarily because A&B sold its majority interest in California & Hawaiian Sugar Co. in December.
"The second-quarter performance was a distinct improvement over the prior year's quarter, largely as a result of Matson recovering from a poor 1998," said W. Allen Doane, A&B president and chief executive officer. Increased demand led Matson to put on some extra sailings and loads were high.
Although the International Longshore & Warehouse Union is working without a contract, there have been slowdowns on the West Coast docks, affecting Matson's operations since the end of the last quarter, the company said.
In the second quarter Matson had an operating profit of $25.3 million, up 50.6 percent from $16.8 million in the year-earlier period. Matson revenues of $187.8 million in the 1999 quarter were up 3.1 percent from $182.1 million in the 1998 period.
A&B's property leasing activities showed a $6.4 million operating profit in the quarter, up 14.3 percent from $5.6 million in the 1998 quarter. Second-quarter lease revenues of $10.8 million were up 17.4 percent from $9.2 million. Second-quarter property sales at A&B, one of Hawaii's largest private landowners, had a profit of $9.9 million, down 29.3 percent from $14 million. Property-sales revenues of $27.2 million were down 55.3 percent from $60.8 million. Food products had an operating profit of $2 million, down one-third from $3 million, and food revenues of $37.3 million were down 66 percent from a year-earlier $113 million.
Chairman Couch
Star-Bulletin staff
to retire; says
transplant a successJohn C. Couch, who served in top posts at Alexander & Baldwin Inc. until he took medical leave last year, will retire from the company, effective Sept. 30.
Couch, 60, said he has fully recovered from a liver transplant earlier this year but now wants to pursue other interests while he is "still relatively young, active and healthy."
Couch, who said he had intended to retire at 62 anyway, was chairman, president and chief executive officer when he took leave last summer because of his medical problems.
R.J. Pfeiffer, who had retired as chairman, came back to run the company while Couch went through medical treatment. Pfeiffer remains company chairman and W. Allen Doane is the company's president and CEO.
Couch joined A&B through it biggest subsidiary, Matson Navigation Co., in 1976 in an engineering job in San Francisco. He was named president in 1991, CEO in 1992 and chairman in 1995.
