Gregg Gardiner, owner and publisher of 101 Things to Do on Kaua’i and similarly named visitor publications on O’ahu, Maui and the Big Island, has sold those publications to Gannett Pacific Corporation for an undisclosed sum. Gardiner retains the magazines’
Gregg Gardiner, owner and publisher of 101 Things to Do on Kaua’i and similarly named visitor publications on O’ahu, Maui and the Big Island, has sold those publications to Gannett Pacific Corporation for an undisclosed sum.
Gardiner retains the magazines’ trademark rights, and is looking at establishing the publication in some Mainland markets that have not yet been identified, he said.
A Gannett representative said the ability to take the successful 101 Things concept into other markets outside Hawai’i also appealed to the buyer.
Gardiner and Don Parks, director of business development for Gannett’s Pacific region, confirmed the sale, which was finalized with a wire transfer of funds early yesterday morning.
Parks said Gannett intends to keep all 15 of the publications’ employees, most of them based at the Lihu’e office on Haleko Road in a building owned by Gardiner. Gardiner, however, will not remain with the company.
The Lihu’e office will remain headquarters for the publications until further notice, Parks said.
“We see the way they enhance the other Gannett publications we already own in Hawai’i,” said Parks, who handles specialty publications for Gannett in the Pacific.
“The idea to be able to take it into other markets outside of the islands” was appealing to the buyer as well, he said.
“We looked at the product, and it’s a very successful, viable product in the islands, and there’s some great synergies between what we do and what they were doing,” Parks added.
Gannett also owns and operates The Honolulu Advertiser.
There are no plans to alter the look, feel or content of any of the 101 Things publications, as they are successful the way they are, Parks continued.
Rhett Long, president of Hawaii.com, has been named interim president of 101 Things to Do, Parks said.
“I guess I’m still looking at options,” Gardiner said of what he’ll do next.
He recently sold his Internet business, Kaua’i Internet (hawaiian.net), to a group of local investors, leaving him only with Midway, Limited as a business holding. That company does some Web-design work. He also owns commercial and residential properties on the island.
He is also the chairman of the Kaua’i Island Utilities Cooperative.
Gardiner said he doesn’t intend to leave Kaua’i.
“I don’t know what else I’ll do. It’s a new chapter,” Gardiner said.
“There’s just times in a person’s life when you look at what your options are,” Gardiner responded when asked why he would sell publications that by all accounts are doing so well.
“Gannett can do an awful lot to enhance the product that we started, with all of their other resources that they have available to them,” he added. “I think it’ll be a good thing for the company. I think it’ll be a good thing for the employees.
“And I think it’ll be an even better thing for our advertisers,” said Gardiner.
“Both the buyer and the seller had it in their best interests, and at the end of the day a deal was struck, based on both parties’ agreement,” Gardiner said.
Negotiations ran for several weeks.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
