Barnwell’s stock up 18%
for week, hits 13-year highThe company has been talking with
a party interested in developing
its leasehold land
Barnwell Industries Inc.'s thinly traded stock attracted nearly 26 times its six-month average daily volume yesterday and soared 9.1 percent to a 13-year high of $30.
The Honolulu-based company, which has oil and gas operations in Alberta, Canada, and develops leasehold land on the Big Island, rose $2.50 to finish the week with an 18.1 percent gain.
Shares of the company hadn't hit $30 since Dec. 21, 1990. The last time it closed above that level was Aug. 7, 1990 when it reached $30.25. The company's all-time closing high was $37.38 on Dec. 11, 1989.
Barnwell's executives were at a board meeting yesterday in Canada and unavailable to give any explanation for the stock's move.
Barnwell is scheduled to release its fiscal 2003 year-end earnings later this month following the executives' return on Friday.
The company, which owns a 77.6 percent controlling interest in Kaupulehu Developments in north Kona, said in its third-quarter filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that negotiations were continuing between Kaupulehu and an unidentified independent party interested in developing the partnership's leasehold land.
The leasehold interests held by Kaupulehu are for approximately 870 acres of land zoned for resort/residential development and approximately 1,000 acres of land zoned as a conservation district.
The land is adjacent to and north of the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai.
Of the 870 zoned resort/residential acreage, approximately 186 acres were designated by the State Land Use Commission as preservation areas with no residential or golf course development.
The 5,700 shares that exchanged hands yesterday dwarfed the six-month daily average of 220 and represented the heaviest volume in one day since 6,400 shares were traded on Dec. 12, 2002. The stock also traded every day during this week, marking the first time that has happened since the first week of March of this year.
Barnwell, in its fiscal third quarter that ended June 30, posted net income of $650,000 compared with a loss of $220,000 a year earlier and a ninth-month gain of $1.8 million compared with a loss of $280,000 in the year-earlier period.
The company credited the gains to increases in oil and natural gas prices.