A&B to buy Maui,
Kauai resort land
A subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc. is spending $135 million to buy three golf courses and 270 acres of undeveloped land at the Wailea Resort on Maui, as well as two Kauai golf courses and an undeveloped hotel site at the Kauai Lagoons Resort.
A&B subsidiary South Maui Development LLC is buying the properties from the Shinwa Golf Group, the same company that had purchased A&B's interest in the Wailea Resort in 1989. Japan-based Shinwa put the properties on the market last year as part of a loan restructuring agreement. The sale is expected to close in early October.
The state-run Resolution and Collection Corp., charged with cleaning up bad loans, acquired Shinwa's loans after the collapse of the company's principal lender, Nippon Credit Bank.
Shinwa, owned by Mitsuo Kokufu, had purchased the Wailea properties for about $200 million in 1989 and the Kauai Lagoons for $250 million in 1991. The company added two golf courses at Wailea, a club house and two residential subdivisions.
In November, Shinwa said Japan's flagging economy was forcing the sale. "Unfortunately, economic conditions have forced us to focus on our core business in Japan, and to consent to the sale of our Hawaii assets," Kokufu said.
The Wailea Resort was originally planned by A&B's Wailea Development Co. in the early 1970s, and now encompasses more than 1,500 acres with six hotels, 450 single-family homes, 1,300 condominium units and the 156,000-square-foot Shops at Wailea.
"These are exceptional properties, which present excellent near- and long-term opportunities," A&B President and Chief Executive Officer Allen Doane said. "A&B already has a strong presence on Maui and possesses the local development expertise and on-island resources that make this acquisition a particularly good strategic fit."
In recent years, A&B has been aggressively buying Hawaii real estate, with 16 acquisitions worth $300 million in the past four years. It narrowly missed out on purchasing Victoria Ward Ltd., which sold for $250 million last year to General Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago-based owner of Ala Moana Center.
In the latest purchase, A&B will partner with an affiliate of GolfBC Group, a Vancouver, Canada, golf investment and management company.