It isn’t often when business and environmental concerns dovetail. Usually they’re strange bedfellows. Not so, though, in the sale of Grove Farm Co. to a new owner that’s about as big-business as they come, yet seemingly headed for a long
It isn’t often when business and environmental concerns dovetail. Usually they’re strange bedfellows. Not so, though, in the sale of Grove Farm Co. to a new owner that’s about as big-business as they come, yet seemingly headed for a long honeymoon with Kaua’i environmentalists and perhaps an even longer philosophical union.
Steve Case, chairman of America Online, is the marquee name in the group that is buying Grove Farm. The accepted offer of $152 per share adds up to $26 million for Grove Farm’s shareholders. It’s good for them and good for the company’s commercial holdings, most notably Kukui Grove Center, the largest shopping center on the island and which surely will benefit from fresh capital for improvements and a general facelift where needed.
Maha’ulepu, the unspoiled coastal territory that is among land being acquired from Grove Farm, is the other part of the Case ownership equation. So far, leaders of Malama Maha’ulepu, the citizens’ group that wants to preserve the area, are all but hailing Case and company as the best possible new owner. The reason: Case has family ties to Kaua’i (his grandfather was once a Grove Farm executive) that presumably could tilt any development decisions in favor of the kind of long-term land stewardship that environmentalists prefer.
There’s no denying that Case is an empire-builder – witness AOL’s pending purchase of Time Warner Inc. for a cool $110 billion – and that he expects returns on investments. But as we’ve said previously, it’s hard to imagine him advancing his empire at the expense of Maha’ulepu’s pristine condition. That’s why his arrival as a financial player on Kaua’i seems like a marriage made in heaven.
