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Macadamia Orchards
By Russ Lynch
triples earnings
Star-Bulletin
ML Macadamia Orchards LP today reported fourth-quarter earnings three times those of the year-earlier quarter.
The Honolulu-based company had a net of $3.6 million, or 48 cents a share, compared with $1.2 million, or 16 cents a share, in the 1998 period.
Revenues in the latest quarter were $7.6 million, up 42 percent from $5.4 million in the 1998 period, the company said.
For all of 1999, a year that included a record harvest but some lower prices, the company had a profit of $4.6 million, up nearly 380 percent from $963,000 in 1998.
The full-year earnings were equal to 61 cents a share, compared with 1998's 13 cents. Technically the shares are Class A partnership units, but they trade on the New York Stock Exchange just like common stock. The shares ended trading today unchanged at $3.81 before the company's earnings were released.
Revenues for 1999 were $15.9 million, up 28.2 percent from $12.4 million in 1998.
The business, which grows macadamia nuts on 4,000 acres of Big Island land, had a 49 percent increase in annual production at its Keaau orchards and a 126 percent increase at its Mauna Kea orchards.
The company said it received an average of 62.4 cents a pound for raw nuts last year, down 2.2 percent from 63.8 cents in 1998. Prices have been falling for two years.
