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Matson helps A&B
post $5 mil profit

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. today reported a 1999 fourth-quarter profit of $5 million, or 12 cents a share, a turnaround from a loss of $15.6 million, or 35 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. But the quarters weren't directly comparable because of special charges unrelated to day-to-day operations.

On the operating side, the big Matson Navigation Co. subsidiary did well, due partly to a barge competitor in the West Coast-Hawaii business dropping out of the trade. Operating results also were up from A&B's property business but down in its sugar business.

The 1998 fourth-quarter net loss was caused by about $40 million in special charges and write-downs unconnected with day-to-day operations of the business. They were a $19.8 million loss from the December 1998 sale of A&B's majority interest in California & Hawaiian Sugar Co. and a $20.2 million charge from writing down the value of Kukui'ula, a 1,050-acre Kauai real estate development hurt by poor market conditions.

The latest quarter also had a special charge, the previously-announced write-down of the Kauai Coffee Co. subsidiary, which caused a charge of $15.4 million before taxes and $9.6 million after taxes.

Fourth-quarter revenues were down 22.8 percent to $253.1 million, from $328 million in the 1998 quarter, because of the absence in 1999 of the revenues A&B had been getting from C&H.

For all of 1999, A&B had a net profit of $62.6 million, or $1.45 a share, compared with a net profit of $25.1 million, or 56 cents a share, in 1998. Full-year revenues were $959.3 million, down 26.2 percent from $1.3 billion in 1998, with the slip directly attributable to the C&H sale.

"A&B's performance in 1999 exceeded our target objectives for the year," said W. Allen Doane, president and chief executive, who said the year-over-year improvement in per-share earnings was equal to 26 percent, not counting the one-time charges. "This was accomplished despite little appreciable improvement in Hawaii's economic condition," he said.

"Matson's results were higher, even after the effects of rapidly rising fuel costs and declines in productivity associated with longshore negotiations in Hawaii and on the West Coast," Doane said. He said property acquisitions, which totaled $86 million in 1999 -- more than two-thirds of it in Hawaii -- helped the property development and management business perform well for the year.

"Our raw sugar production was also the highest in a decade, making a greater contribution to profits as well," Doane said.

For all of 1999, Matson had an operating profit of $83.8 million, up 26.4 percent from a profit of $66.3 million in 1998. Property leasing produced a full-year operating profit of $27.5 million, up 21.7 percent from $22.6 million in 1998, while property sales had an operating profit of $17.4 million in 1999, down 29.8 percent from $24.8 million in 1998.