Isle group buys
majority stake in
Hawaii Land & Farming

Star-Bulletin staff

A corporation headed by Hawaii developer Stanford S. Carr has purchased a majority of the stock of Hawaii Land & Farming Co.and says it will pay at least 50 cents a share for the rest of the stock.

The buyer, Milwaukee Holdings LLC, also said it has made arrangements to restructure the Maui company's debt.

Hawaii Land & Farming has 2,700 acres of developable land on Maui, Kauai and the Big Island but by mid-year, after some heavy losses, it had $20 million in loans due.

At that time Milwaukee Holdings, a company registered in Hawaii, offered $1.5 million to the Hawaii Land's original investors to gain control.

Formerly C. Brewer Homes Inc., the company had been developing its land into subdivisions and building and selling homes. After an unsuccessful and costly attempt to merge with what is now called ML Macadamia Orchards LP last year, the company changed its strategy to selling prepared sites to other home builders. It also began looking for a buyer.

If Carr's group buys the rest of the stock for 50 cents a share, its total acquisition cost will be about $3.5 million, equal to about $1,300 an acre for the company's land.

The shares, which closed at 37 cents today, were delisted from the Nasdaq national market last December and are now quoted on the Nasdaq over-the-counter bulletin board. As of Dec. 16, the stock will no longer be listed on OTC bulletin board.

The company said the shares will probably be listed on the National Quotation Bureau's "pink sheets" of small companies.