Maui residents had long known fundamental changes were under way at Maui Land & Pineapple Co., but the faltering efforts to maintain its agricultural base came to a head in 2008.
In July, the company announced it was cutting 274 positions - 204 from Maui Pineapple Co. and 46 and 24 positions respectively from its Kapalua Resort and community development divisions. The layoffs represented a quarter of the company's work force.
The downsizing was expected to save the company $11 million, while the smaller plantation would produce fresh fruit for local markets and a "handful of selected accounts on the Mainland," the company said.
The company's bottom line also was buffeted by higher oil prices, slowing tourism and a sluggish real estate market.
In September, the company's resort division was hit when investment firm Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and ML&P lost financing for its prime resort-condominium projects, the Residences at Kapalua and Ritz-Carlton Club. The company and its partners scraped together the $27.7 million needed to continue work on the 80-percent-complete project but have not yet found a new lender for the long term.
The 146 luxury residential condominiums include segmented ownership units, and are considered crucial for ML&P's future profitability.
In October, the ML&P board took a hard look at shutting down pineapple cultivation, President and Chief Executive Officer David Cole revealed in an interview with The Maui News. The board decided to allow planting to continue at Haliimaile, but it imposed strict conditions on the plantation, including negotiating with labor, reducing costs and establishing triggers to automatically stop pine operations if monthly and quarterly losses fall too steeply.
On Nov. 8, Cole announced he would resign after five years at the helm as chairman, president and chief executive officer of ML&P. His announcement came as the company posted a third-quarter loss of $8.7 million.
Effective today, Robert Webber, the company's chief operating and financial officer, succeeds Cole as president and CEO. Warren Haruki, chief executive officer of Grove Farm on Kauai, is the new chairman of the board. Cole continues as an ML&P director.
On Dec. 9, ML&P announced that Steve Case, a 42 percent owner who was responsible for bringing in Cole, was elected to the board of directors.
