2001: Trouble and triumph
2001 represented sea changes for many Hawai'i companies

Advertiser Staff

The year 2001 saw significant change for some of Hawai'i's largest and oldest companies. From acquisitions and mergers to closures and restructurings, the deals that were done have forever reshaped the local landscape. Among some of the largest:

• BancWest Corp.

In May, Paris-based BNP Paribas SA announces plans to buy the 55 percent of the Honolulu-based parent company of First Hawaiian Bank that it doesn't already own. The deal, valued at about $2.5 billion, would take the company private by the end of the year. The purchase does not affect current operations of the bank's San Francisco-based Bank of the West or First Hawaiian. Walter Dods remains chief executive and BancWest's headquarters remains in Hawai'i. The acquisition marks the end of local ownership for one of Hawai'i's oldest companies.

Liberty House jumped from bankruptcy to Macy's in a dizzying turn of fortunes for Hawai'i's oldest and largest retailer. Advertiser library photo • Nov. 23, 2001

In June, Federated Department Stores Inc. announces plans to buy Hawai'i's oldest and largest retailer. The purchase comes less than four months after Liberty House emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization under the primary new ownership of two private Mainland investment firms. The 152-year-old retailer would be converted to Macy's by the end of the year and become part of the Macy's West division of Cincinnati-based Federated.

• Cheap Tickets

Hotel, real estate and car rental giant Cendant Corp. agrees in August to buy the Honolulu-based discount airfare company Cheap Tickets Inc. for $425 million in cash. Cheap Tickets, one of Hawai'i's best-known success stories, would trim its staff by 80 workers in the wake of the purchase by the New York-based company.

• American Classic Voyages

Hawai'i's tourism industry is rocked by the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in October of American Classic Voyages, which had two cruise ships in service here and was the only domestic cruise line operating in the Islands. About 80,000 passengers sailed each year on American Classic Voyages' 1,212-passenger Patriot and its 867-passenger Independence this year. More than 1,000 workers are without jobs in Hawai'i, and both of the company's cruise ships are shut down.

• Schuler Homes

In a move that will create the second-largest U.S. home-builder, Texas-based home-builder D.R. Horton Inc. announces in October that it will buy Honolulu-based Schuler Homes Inc. in a cash, stock and debt deal valued at $1.2 billion. The deal means Schuler ceases to be a Hawai'i-based company, although operations continue in the islands, and the company's co-founder said growth also is expected to continue in the state.

• Hawaiian and Aloha airlines

The Sept. 11 attacks hammer the airline industry and both of Hawai'i's major interisland carriers announce job and route cuts soon after. In December, the carriers announce plans to merge in a move that will create the nation's 10th-largest airline but leave the Islands with only one major local carrier for the first time in more than five decades. The merger, expected to be final in the first half of next year, likely will mean hundreds of job cuts, as well as some fare increases and reduced flight schedules. And it will mark the end of Hawaiian Airlines, founded in 1929, and Aloha Airlines, founded in 1946.