Renaissance Wailea owner anticipates separate sales
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Japanese company selling Maui's Renaissance Wailea Beach Resort hotel, five Hawai'i golf courses and development land has received numerous bids and anticipates selecting one buyer for the hotel and one for the other assets in May.
Advertiser library photo • Oct. 10, 2000
Kyoto-based Shinwa Golf Group, which announced the sale effort in November as part of a compromise to pay off bad loans and keep eight golf courses in Japan, anticipates completing a deal with the highest bidders in August.
The Renaissance Wailea Beach Resort on Maui is owned by Shinwa Golf Group and managed by Marriott.
Shinwa is recommending that a sale be made to two unidentified companies, though bids by these companies will be evaluated equally with others, according to a bid invitation obtained by The Advertiser.
According to the invitation, an anticipated eight to 15 prospective buyers for each of the two asset groupings will be reduced to two expected short lists of three to six bidders sometime this month, followed by an asset review period and final bids next month.
The Resolution and Collection Corp., a Japanese government agency in charge of reducing delinquent loans, including some made to Shinwa, is handling the sale with assistance from PricewaterhouseCoopers Financial Advisory Services, which prepared the bid invitation.
Luly Unemori, a spokeswoman for Shinwa Hawaii, said the company could not disclose bidders or comment on the sales process because of confidentiality agreements.
Local hotel and golf course brokers said obvious interest should be from large resort operators such as Hilton, Fairmont and Marriott, which manages the Renaissance for Shinwa, in addition to residential developers wanting to build homes alongside some of Shinwa's golf property.
Packaged for sale are the 345-room Wailea hotel and a separate portfolio containing two golf courses, a retail center and farm at Kauai Lagoons Golf Club, three courses at Wailea Golf Club, the Wailea Tennis Club and about 250 acres of undeveloped Wailea land.
Shinwa employs about 300 people who the company said it hopes will be able to continue their jobs. Another 400 workers at the Wailea hotel are Marriott employees.
Brokers say bid prices are hard to estimate because they will likely be based on cash flow of the properties, which Shinwa said are profitable. County government assessments for property tax purposes value the hotel at about $72 million, and roughly $245 million for Shinwa's other assets.
Shinwa spent between $800 million and $900 million investing in Hawai'i, including acquisition costs, development costs and a $40 million renovation of the Wailea hotel.
The company bought the land under and around the Wailea hotel and two golf courses for $197.5 million from Alexander & Baldwin in 1989, during the Japanese real estate acquisition boom. Two years later, Shinwa acquired the hotel and two Kaua'i golf courses. Shinwa also built a third course and clubhouse at Wailea.
About three years ago, the RCC seized Shinwa's loans from collapsed financial institution Nippon Credit Bank, principal lender for Shinwa's investments in Hawai'i.
Shinwa had about $600 million in debts last year and plans to reduce that amount using proceeds from the Hawai'i asset sales and to pay off the loan balance over 12 years.
Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.
