Hawaii Land sale
delayed but two
sides still talking

Local developer Carr is
heading up the investors' group

Star-Bulletin staff

The planned sale of a majority of Hawaii Land & Farming Co. stock to a group of investors led by local developer Stanford S. Carr did not close on schedule yesterday, but negotiations are under way to extend the closing date into next month, the company said.

Carr's Milwaukee Holdings LLC has been negotiating to take over the Wailuku-based company, the former C. Brewer Homes Inc.

Hawaii Land & Farming owns 2,700 acres of land on Maui, Kauai and the Big Island but had more than $20 million in loans due last month and has suffered heavy losses.

Milwaukee Holdings agreed to buy 3 million shares of Hawaii Land's Class B stock from some of the company's founding investors for an initial investment of $1.5 million, to gain a majority holding.

Carr also agreed to make a public offer of 50 cents a share for the rest of the company's stock and later expanded his offer to include the publicly traded Class A shares.

That stock was delisted by the Nasdaq exchange in December, after falling below the exchange's minimum market-value requirement.

The shares still trade on the over-the-counter bulletin board and last changed hands today at 40.6 cents.

A month ago the company fired its president and CEO Seth A. Bakes and replaced him with Scott Okada as an interim president. The company had been in the business of developing land and building and selling homes on the subdivisions. Caught by a slump in the Hawaii economy, it recently shifted its strategy to selling parcels of developed land to other home builders.