Sugar shipments drag down A&B earnings

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. earned a dramatically smaller profit in the third quarter due to unfavorable delivery, production and price issues for the company’s sugar farming subsidiary on Maui.

Honolulu-based A&B reported Thursday that income tumbled 67 percent to $4.4 million in the July-September period from $13.4 million in the same period last year.

Operating profit rose for A&B’s real estate leasing and sales divisions. But the company’s agribusiness operations, primarily Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. on Maui, suffered an operating-profit decline to $2.2 million in the recent quarter from $9.1 million a year earlier.

A&Blet stock market analysts know that it anticipates its agribusiness operations will likely lose money in the fourth quarter due to low sugar prices and the need to find alternative transportation for molasses because Matson Inc. ceased molasses shipments after discovering a leaky delivery line that polluted Honolulu Harbor and caused major environmental damage in September.

During the third quarter the timing of sugar cargo ship voyages to the mainland resulted in only one shipment compared with two a year earlier, which effectively halved the amount of sugar A&B sold.

HC&S also produced less sugar — 64,000 tons in the recent quarter compared with 78,200 tons a year earlier — because fewer acres were harvested.

Lower sugar prices were another factor, along with lower sales margins on molasses and electricity that are produced in the sugar refining process.

Better results were achieved by A&B’s real estate operations, where the company has put much of its focus on increasing its inventory of commercial property in Hawaii.

"It was a busy quarter with some exciting investments," Chris Benjamin, A&B’s president, told stock market analysts in a conference call.

Operating profit from commercial property such as shopping centers — where A&B earns rental income from tenants — totaled $11.2 million in the third quarter, up 9.8 percent from $10.2 million a year earlier.

Operating profit from real estate sales totaled $4.6 million in the third quarter, up 39 percent from $3.3 million a year earlier.

Big sales in the quarter included two mainland commercial properties — an industrial complex in Utah and an office complex in Washington state — and 209 acres of farmland on Maui.

A&B noted that today it will complete a $40 million sale of a 24-acre parcel on Maui for a Target store.

A&B made two big real estate acquisitions during the third quarter. One involved buying 27 residential parcels on Kahala Avenue from Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto for $98 million. A&B plans to clean up and resell the parcels, many of which are vacant lots. To date, A&B ha

s sold four Kahala parcels but has not disclosed prices.

The other big property purchase was Pearl Highlands Center, a Pearl City retail complex acquired for $142 million in September.

A&B said the Pearl Highlands acquisition involved $1.6 million in related expenses that affected its operating profit. Another significant negative impact on real estate operating profit was a $6.3 million write-down for the value of The Shops of Kukui’ula, a retail center on Kauai that A&B owns by itself after dissolving a joint venture.

In real estate development, A&B reported a few sales of resort home parcels at neighbor island resorts during the quarter. The company also has two condominium tower projects in Kakaako, though sales revenue won’t be recorded till the projects are finished.

One tower, called Waihonua at Kewalo, is sold out, under construction and slated for completion in early 2015. The other project, called The Collection, has yet to begin construction, though

"nearly half" of the project’s 467 units are under binding sale contracts with buyers, Benjamin said.

On Oct. 1, A&B completed its acquisition of local paving contractor Grace Pacific LLC. Stan Kuriyama, A&B chief executive officer, said Grace is expected to be an important earnings generator for A&B.

The Grace acquisition included $1.2 million in related expenses that reduced A&B’s third-quarter profit. Excluding this charge, A&B would have earned $5.6 million in the quarter. A&B also noted that in the 2012 third quarter it had $400,000 in expenses related to spinning off Matson into an independent company.

Shares of A&B stock closed Thursday at $36.05 before the earnings announcement. That was down 53 cents from $36.58 on Wednesday.