ML&P execs
to quit

After Maui Land & Pineapple
posts a $5.7 million loss, its
chief executive and
chairman are leaving

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Star-Bulletin staff

Maui Land & Pineapple Co., which last year posted its worst loss in nearly a decade, is also losing two of its top executives.

President and Chief Executive Officer Gary L. Gifford, and Chairman Richard H. Cameron are stepping down, the company said yesterday.

The company lost $5.7 million last year, its deepest loss since it was in the red for $11.1 million in 1993. It lost $2.2 million in the last quarter of 2002 alone.

The company announced yesterday that Gifford will retire at the company's annual meeting May 27.

Cameron will step down from his post at the same time, but will remain a director. He will be replaced as nonexecutive chairman by board member David Heenan, 63, a business educator, author and a trustee of the Estate of James Campbell.

Heenan will lead the search for a new chief executive.

Gifford, who has been with the company for 16 years, has been CEO for eight years. His last publicly reported salary was $400,000 in 2001.

Cameron, 48, is a member of the Maui family that owns 35 percent of the company's shares. The biggest shareholder is a trust formed by Hawaii-born Steve Case, chairman of AOL Time Warner. The trust owns just over 41 percent of the company's shares.

A short announcement issued by the company yesterday gave no reason for the changes. Calls to the company and Heenan were not returned.

The company has been losing money in its pineapple business because of lower sales prices but diversified years ago into real estate, tourism and retailing uses for some of its land.

Its Kapalua Resort segment had an operating profit of $2.8 million last year, but its business as the only pineapple canning operations posted a 2002 operating loss of $3.3 million.

The company's stock closed down 11 cents yesterday to $18.15 on the American Stock Exchange. The executive changes were announced after the market closed.