A&B Agreement with Mahi Pono Launches New Era of Ag on Maui

HONOLULU, Dec. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) (NYSE: ALEX) today announced an agreement that will launch a new era of agriculture on Maui. The agreement provides for the sale of the former Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company lands to Mahi Pono LLC (Mahi Pono) for purposes of cultivating a variety of food and energy crops, ensuring the continued agricultural use of these lands, the preservation of green, open space in Central Maui, and a consistent and long-term source of revenue for the local economy.

Mahi Pono is a farming venture between Pomona Farming, LLC, a California-based agricultural group, and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), a long-term investor and one of Canada's largest pension investment managers. The Mahi Pono team has significant experience cultivating diverse agricultural crops and managing cattle operations on more than 100,000 acres, with a focus purely on agriculture and a track record of making long-term investments in farming projects. All of A&B's existing agricultural personnel will be offered positions with Mahi Pono, to put their experience and knowledge to use to help further Mahi Pono's farm plan.

Mahi Pono's farm plan currently envisions cultivating a broad range of food crops for local consumption and export, including coffee, various fruit and vegetable crops and an expansion of A&B's grass-fed cattle project at Kulolio Ranch, which Mahi Pono purchased as part of this transaction. Mahi Pono also purchased Central Maui Feedstocks, A&B's energy crop project, and assumed all diversified agriculture leases previously entered into by A&B.

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