Officials discuss Hawaiian island’s potential sale
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, AP:
The sale of Hawaii’s smallest publicly accessible inhabited island is imminent, and local leaders are anticipating what new ownership could mean for the island’s some 3,200 residents.
A potential buyer of Lanai, part of Maui County, was revealed to Gov. Neil Abercrombie and the county’s mayor at a meeting last week with representatives from landowner Castle & Cooke Inc. Self-made billionaire David Murdock’s Castle & Cooke owns 98 percent of island’s 141 square miles.
…
The asking price is reportedly between $500 million and $600 million, the Maui News reported.
The island of Lana’i is indeed almost entirely owned privately. This is part of the legacy of plantations and the Big Five on Hawai’i.