Leading real estate investor was also ‘big-hearted’ friend

Jon T. Miho, founding partner of one of Honolulu’s most prominent law firms, spent the last 30 years using his legal and international business expertise in real estate and hotel investments in Hawaii and abroad.

“I think Jon was one of the most strategic figures in Hawaii as far as real estate acquisition was concerned during the ’80s and ’90s,” said Punahou School friend and former law partner William McCorriston.

“He was also one of the nicest, most affable persons you could deal with. He had a bigger than life personality, but he was a mediocre golfer,” he joked.

Miho co-founded McCorriston Miho Miller in 1989 and went on to take the helm of Trinity Investments Trust LLC in 1997 as president. During the last 20 years, Trinity acquired $5 billion in investments in Hawaii and Japan, including the Kahala Hotel, the Hyatt Regency Waikiki, and similar properties.

Miho died Jan. 6 at age 74 at the Queen’s Medical Center.

“He was incredibly generous,” said Sean Hehir, now president and chief executive officer of Trinity Investments. “He helped countless people. He was big-hearted, a visionary that had an amazing way with people coupled with being a great investor and businessman.

“His close friends were people he did business with, and people he did business with were his friends,” Hehir said.

Chuck Sweeney and George Ruff were Miho’s clients before partnering with him at Trinity. After Miho got on board, Trinity purchased Harbor Court and Aloha Tower Marketplace, Kea Lani Resort and Embassy Suites Kaanapali.

The company also purchased Wailea 670 and Ma-kena Resort, and as a result was invited to start investments in Japan, Hehir said.

Miho was born Oct. 26, 1942, in Honolulu to Katsuro and Jayne Miho. He followed in his father’s and uncle Katsugo Miho’s footsteps, becoming an attorney.

Katsuro Miho and his law partner Hiram Fong (who later became a U.S. senator) paved the way for Asian- Americans in Hawaii. Their firm, Fong Miho, worked to repeal immigration laws meant to exclude Japanese from becoming Americans, said cousin Mariko Miho.

After receiving a degree in economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Jon Miho attended the Hastings College of the Law at the University of California in San Francisco. In Washington, D.C., he served as Fong’s legislative aide, and was later an assistant U.S. attorney in Honolulu.

“My father and Sen. Fong grew up in a Hawaii where they were second-class citizens,” Jon Miho said in 2004 at Fong’s funeral.

“Insults and discrimination against Orientals were common and normal. It was a fact of life that you had to be better than the haole to stay even. You had to work harder, stay longer, be smarter to get ahead in Hawaii.”

After serving as an assistant U.S. attorney, he joined his father at Fong Miho.

“His dad was very happy that Jon finally agreed to join the firm after doing other things, and was happy to turn over the reins to Jon,” McCorriston said.

“They had very different personalities,” he said. “Kats was old school; Jon, new generation. There was a very cordial relationship between the two. Kats Miho was the consummate gentleman. Jon was robust in his personality.”

From 1989 to 1997, Jon Miho was one of the prominent American lawyers doing business with the Japanese, working with a Japanese long-term credit bank that helped its clients wanting to buy properties in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland, McCorriston said.

“His personality was a big factor in that,” he said. “He wasn’t fluent in Japanese, but I think the Japanese took to Jon because he was an affable guy, and he was direct and honest. He had a great track record of completing transactions.”

Hehir said the business relationships that Miho built left Trinity in “great shape.”

“Jon was an unbelievable dealmaker,” he said. “He had the uncanny ability to bring people together from both sides of the table, where both sides felt they benefited.”

Hehir called Miho a “true visionary,” and “after the (economic) bubble burst,” he went to Japan in 1998 and started investing there and in Hawaii. “He always had this dual strategy.”

Trinity invested in a few hotels in Japan but mostly in commercial real estate, including real estate malls and apartment buildings.

But it wasn’t just about making money. Miho took the lead in being good “stewards here in Hawaii of the real estate we invested in, and Jon always made sure we behaved in a way that was pono, gracious and humble, doing what’s right,” Hehir said.

“He had a magnanimous personality and a very big heart,” said his cousin Mariko Miho.

“He’s like my big brother,” Arthur Miho said. “You always look up to someone so successful. … We see the impact they had in Hawaii. They’re not in public service. They’re in business. To see the kind of good that they did for Hawaii, it was impressive. It was hard to live up to that.

“He was someone larger than life,” he said.

Miho is survived by his wife, Pam, and daughter, Paige, and predeceased by son Ross.