Sale brings Maui Land & Pineapple closer to being solvent

Maui Land &Pineapple Co. is only $1.2 million away from being debt free after selling a three-hole practice golf course in February for $7 million.

The sale helped produce a $5.8 million profit for Maui Land in the first quarter, which compared with a $1.4 million loss in the same period last year.

Kapalua-based Maui Land used most of the proceeds from the sale — $5.6 million out of $6.4 million that was left after expenses — to pay off debt in continuation of an effort that has stretched over several years to chip away at what had been a mountain of debt ($137 million) in 2008 as the company moved to quit pineapple farming a year later and suffered from a resort development investment that ended badly amid the recession about a decade ago.

The 15-acre practice golf course called Kapalua Golf Academy was sold to the same company that bought the Kapalua Plantation Golf Course and Bay Golf Course from Maui Land in recent years. The buyer, TY Management Corp., was formed by Tadashi Yanai, chairman and chief executive of the Tokyo-based Fast Retailing Co. that operates about 1,800 apparel stores under the UNIQLO name around the world.

Maui Land, which owns 23,000 acres of mostly farmland on the Valley Isle, also expects to sell two other properties this year — 630 acres of Upcountry farmland and 80 acres of Upcountry agricultural land with a wastewater treatment facility.

During the first quarter, Maui Land generated $9.7 million in revenue, up from $3 million a year earlier. The company, which released its first-quarter financial results Friday, has been mainly selling real estate assets in recent years as part of a turn-around effort. Maui Land also generates revenue from operating utilities and a private club, earning commissions on resort home resales and leasing farmland, retail, office and industrial property to others.

Shares of Maui Land stock had been surging earlier this year after detailed financial results for last year were released in February. On Friday, shares closed at $13.65 before the first-quarter earnings announcement. Shares hit an eight-year high of $13.90 on April 17. That compared with $7.20 at the end of last year and a 52-week low of $5.35 on May 6.