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One Lucky Billionaire is Now Part-Owner of Hawaii

June 25, 2012 at 10:25 AM | by | Comments (2)

If you haven’t seen The Descendants yet, you might want to do so, as apparently it’s playing out in real life over on Hawaii. Basically George Clooney’s character in the movie is forced with a tough decision about whether or not to sell his family’s ancestral land to outsiders. Now in real life it looks like the same thing is taking place, as someone is getting ready to write quite the significant check.

Larry Ellison—famous for founding Oracle and being super rich—just finalized a deal in which he will pretty much own a huge part of Hawaii. You heard us right; he’s buying his very own island, and he’s going call a very large part of Hawaii home. The deal will score him roughly 98% of the island of Lana’I, as he’s handing over some serious cash to David Murdock—a major holder in pineapple processor, Dole Food Company.

The purchase includes a pair of swanky resorts, a couple of golf courses, two club houses, and around 88,000 acres of stunning Hawaii real estate. The exact pricing hasn’t been revealed, but the speculation leads us to belief that it’s going to set him back between $500 and $600 million dollars.

As of now it sounds like business—and life—is as usual for both residents of the island and visitors; however, we’re not sure if the sale will mean any changes in the future on the island. It sounds like the former owner was loosing as much as $10 million per year in costs, so hopefully Ellison and the new ownership will be a little bit more successful with their investment. We’re just jealous we don’t have billions in the bank, Hawaii real estate in our personal portfolio, and have to worry about losing money in our personal slice of paradise.

[Photo: rickh710]

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Poor Lana`i

Being from Maui, I love my sister Island of Lana`i. The residents are all very friendly and it is an amazing escape. Right now the only resorts there are the Four Seasons, and I am sure they pay a pretty penny to keep it that way. However if the owner is still losing money by the millions each month, I can only imagine what may be in mind for someone trying to turn an Island profitable. There are only like 3,000 residents and more than half work for four seasons. Ever since the pineapple industry started moving out of state and country to place like the Philippines, the island has suffered. Everyone working there supports tourism in one way or another. With that, they have managed to keep it from being too over populated. You drive through downtown Lanai City and see the only plantation style houses and you are transported to an older time. It is quite amazing. However now the residents have to go about wondering how this will affect them. Will he want to bring a bigger airport to make one of the smaller, main 8, islands to a more accessible point to be profitable? Will there be more resorts? Bigger harbor? More splitting of land to put up houses and remove pineapple fields? Will he take away the land from one of the most amazing Skeet Shooting ranges in the world? Will the resorts get rid of their kama`aina rates to allow a piece of luxury to be accessible to the locals for half the cost in order to make up for potential higher costs of doing business? Let's hope not. No matter what, the residents have the most at stake here. This is also all going on while Maui County is putting up windmills on Lanai. While it is great to have green energy, it should also be known that all of the energy goes to support Oahu, not Lanai. So Oahu residents get the benefit of the energy, but don't have to put up with the eyesore that windmills can do to paradise.
David Dixon on June 25, 2012 at 4:29 PM #Permalink

Natural Places should be protected by government

I believe natural places should be left for all people to enjoy and should be protected by the government! Do you?
laurabhil on June 26, 2012 at 12:10 PM #Permalink

save nature

http://www.touramerica.ie/
laurabhil on June 26, 2012 at 12:10 PM #Permalink

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