Business / In Brief • Feb. 9, 2011
* Hawaii

Excerpts from: Maui News

Oahu single-family home sales increase

HONOLULU – Oahu home sales increased in January while prices fell slightly compared to a year ago, the Honolulu Board of Realtors reported Tuesday.

There were 199 single-family homes sold during the month, up 11.2 percent from January 2010. There were also 265 condo units sold during the month, an increase of 9.5 percent, the board said.

The median price of a single-family home dipped 4.2 percent from $595,000 to $570,000, while condos fell 2.7 percent to $291,000.

Brian Benton, immediate past president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, said he’s seeing a shift in sales from condos to single-family homes, which is a good indicator of returning consumer confidence.

Single-family homes were listed for an average of 38 days, down from 43 days a year ago. However, condos are taking longer to sell, with an average listing period of 49 days, up considerably from 36 days in January 2010.

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Hawaii enrolls more kids for insurance

HONOLULU – The federal government is reporting that Hawaii has one of the sharpest increases in children enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicaid.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Hawaii child enrollees rose nearly 15 percent between the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, the fifth-highest increase in the nation.

That represents a jump of 18,000 additional children signed up for the CHIP and Medicaid programs.

In all, nearly 142,000 children were enrolled in either of the programs in 2010.

Only Alabama, Montana, Oregon and North Carolina had larger yearly increases.

The enrollment data were included in the annual report of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, which is designed to give states more opportunities to improve program access.

New Lower Price! Dropped by  $50k

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Chinese New Year festival on Maui!

Excerpt from: KHON2.com

The Twelfth Annual Maui Chinese New Year Festival, sponsored in part by the County of Maui, will be held this year on Saturday, February 05, 2011, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the Maui Mall in Kahului.

There will be Chinese food booths, Chinese arts and crafts, local produce, calligraphy, and leather brush artistry. Mayor Alan Arakawa will open the festivities at 10:00 a.m. Lion Dancers and firecracker blessings will follow immediately thereafter, and be repeated at 1:30 p.m., weather permitting.

Event festivities include a Keiki Chinese Costume Contest for girls and boys twelve years and younger. There will be a Tai Chi demonstration, Kung Fu demonstration, Chinese cooking demonstration, and Chinese dancers. There will also be Good Luck photos for the kids, Rabbit crafts, and a Children’s Art Contest exhibit.

KUNG HEE FAT CHOY! TIM FOOK TIM SAU! MAN SAI PENG ON!

The Year of the RABBIT, also known as the Yin Metal Rabbit, 4709 on the Chinese Lunar calendar, begins with the new moon at midnight, between Wednesday, February 2, 2011, and Thursday, February 3, 2011. Other Rabbit Years are 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, and 1999.

XIANG NIAN KUAI LE! GONG XI FA CAI!

Solar electric systems proliferate with much room to grow

Regional restrictions place a cap on the number of systems in any given area

By Erika Engle
Article from: STAR-ADVERTISER

Consumer-installed solar electric systems on Oahu, the Big Island and in Maui County more than doubled in 2010 with 3,967 systems added, compared with 1,916 in 2009.

“This will help all of us in Hawaii as we continue to make progress in cutting our dependence on imported oil,” said Robbie Alm, Hawaiian Electric Co. executive vice president, in a statement.

The installations have increased the state’s electric generation capacity by 13 megawatts, enough to power 3,350 homes.

Alm commended the solar industry for “helping make Hawaii a solar leader.”

“Coordinating with them, we have worked to make solar power more accessible for our customers,” he said.

Some 17 new large-scale photovoltaic projects will sell electricity back to Hawaiian Electric. They will produce 3.2 megawatts.

However, all for the solar industry is not sunny, as regulations limit the number of customers that can easily install solar and integrate with their island’s utility.

» Oahu circuit map is.gd/HECOmap

» Big Island circuit map is.gd/HELCOmap

» Maui County circuit maps: is.gd/MECOmap

“The irony here is while we in the industry gratefully accept HECO’s congratulations for having a strong year in 2010, at the same time we in the industry are seeing more and more circuits being effectively closed to more PV,” said Marco Mangelsdorf, president of Hilo-based ProVision Solar Inc.

Once a residential area reaches a certain threshold of energy-generating customers, additional residents wanting to sell power to the utility have to pay for a reliability study, Mangelsdorf said. Those can cost $2,500 for an individual residential customer, while commercial customers can pay tens of thousands of dollars.

HECO has produced detailed maps customers can access online to determine whether their area is at or near the generation threshold.

Meanwhile, the government, utilities and solar industry continue working “to set some reliability standards,” said Darren Pai, HECO spokesman. The parties are examining “what can be done to increase the amount of these variable resources we have on the system and make sure we can integrate them all reliably and safely.”

Alexander & Baldwin doubles yearly earnings
A stagnant fourth quarter is outweighed by ocean cargo service, real estate sales and sugar operations

By Andrew Gomes
Article from: Star-Advertiser

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. profit was flat in the last three months of 2010, but bigger gains earlier in the year enabled the diversified Honolulu-based company to more than double full-year earnings.

Fourth-quarter net $20.2 million

Year-earlier net $20.1 million

A&B reported 2010 net income of $92.1 million, up from $44.2 million the year before. The gain came on revenue of $1.6 billion, compared with $1.4 billion in the same comparable period.

Fourth-quarter net income was $20.2 million, barely up from $20.1 million in the 2009 fourth quarter. Revenue for the same period totaled $461.4 million, up from $362.9 million.

Profits for the quarter and year were principally driven by ocean cargo service from China by subsidiary Matson Navigation Co., real estate sales and a turnaround in Maui sugar cane operations.

Stan Kuriyama, A&B president and chief executive officer, characterized last year’s earnings as a rebound from 2009 and said he expects improved results this year as the economy strengthens.

“We begin 2011 with an improving economic environment in Hawaii and on the mainland,” he said in a statement. “Hawaii has been led by major gains in the visitor industry, which contributed to higher employment levels and real personal income. These emerging signs of economic recovery are encouraging and provide us with greater confidence for continued improvement in 2011.”

The biggest chunk of operating profit for A&B in the fourth quarter came from real estate sales that included an industrial complex in California and unimproved land on Maui.

Operating profit from property sales totaled $17.8 million, down from $20.4 million a year earlier when the company sold the Honolulu office building Pacific Guardian Tower, a California retail center and several unimproved parcels on Maui.

In A&B’s real estate leasing division, fourth-quarter operating profit was lower than a year earlier — $8.4 million compared with $10 million — because of lower tenant rents and changes in the property portfolio from sales and acquisitions.

Average occupancy at A&B Hawaii properties in the quarter was 91 percent, down from 95 percent a year earlier. The decline was due in part to A&B’s acquisition last year of a Kapolei industrial complex that is 74 percent occupied. Occupancy for A&B’s mainland property portfolio was 86 percent, up from 83 percent.

At Matson, fourth-quarter operating profit was $11.6 million, down from $13.5 million a year earlier. The decrease was largely due to $19 million in start-up losses for a new China-California cargo service using leased vessels. Higher fuel costs also contributed to the reduced operating profit, A&B said.

Matson container volume to Hawaii was up 8 percent to 37,100 in the fourth quarter from 34,200 a year earlier, but the gain reflected an extra week in Matson’s 2010 fiscal year.

Hawaii automobile shipments slipped in the quarter to 19,800 from 20,600 a year earlier, which A&B said was principally due to the timing of rental car replacements.

A potential big expense for Matson this year could be replacing two interisland barges, though A&B said it hasn’t made a decision. The company has budgeted $45 million as a potential partial payment for the barges this year should it make the move.

A&B expects its China service to be the main driver of better Matson returns this year given that Hawaii’s economy and construction industry are forecast to modestly improve.

The only A&B division to increase operating profit in the fourth quarter was agribusiness, with a $4.6 million return that compared with an $800,000 loss a year earlier. The reversal was primarily due to subsidiary Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. achieving higher production, sales and prices.

A&B projects sustained profitability from its sugar operations this year. The company also expects improved financial results to come from a deal announced in December to turn over its Kauai Coffee Co. to global premium coffee seller Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group of Italy.

The deal, which involves Massimo Zanetti buying the Kauai Coffee brand, leasing A&B’s plantation and retaining all employees, is expected to close in March.