Real estate investor fires lawyer, management firm

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

Gensiro Kawamoto, the Hawai'i home-buying billionaire from Japan, yesterday announced he has fired his local attorney and property management firm, and will personally oversee the roughly 100 homes he still owns here.

KAWAMOTO

"I was shocked and upset to see the disastrous conditions of these rental houses," he wrote. "I will never allow these kinds of incidents to occur again."

Kawamoto did not elaborate on home conditions, though one person familiar with the properties said some are vacant and uninhabitable, while others have extensive damage and have been the subject of citations and complaints.

Carol Asai-Sato, Kawamoto's long-time Honolulu attorney, who selected property managers, was terminated Nov. 15, Kawamoto said.

Asai-Sato, an attorney with Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, said Kawamoto's statements were "absolutely not true." She reserved more specific comment until after careful review of Kawamoto's statements. "We will definitely be making a response," she said.

Kawamoto did not identify the property management company he said he terminated in November, and he did not immediately respond to questions yesterday.

Waikiki-based Toyo Realty was recently retained to help Kawamoto manage 103 homes he still owns here. But Kawamoto added: "From now on, I will supervise everything myself again."

Kawamoto said he hopes to live in Hawai'i for at least six months out of the year, and indicated he plans to make more Island investments "which can be welcomed by the local people."

What those investments could be are hard to predict. Kawamoto has a reputation for being unconventional, and his business decisions have not always gone over well in communities.

The 70-year-old billionaire, who made his fortune in real estate in Japan, embarked on a plan to buy as many as 1,000 homes here almost 15 years ago following a trip during which he noticed many houses for sale and a shortage of rentals.

Bending to public criticism, Kawamoto in 1988 cut short his plan, but still spent at least $85 million in "pocket money" buying almost 200 Hawai'i properties, including the leasehold Kaiser estate for $42.5 million, which he later gave up to landowner Kamehameha Schools.

Kawamoto disposed of few Hawai'i properties until February 2002 when he listed for sale 61 of the homes, many at below-market prices.

The flood of perceived deals concentrated in neighborhoods such as Portlock and Kailua created a frenzy among real estate brokers and interested buyers, some of whom resorted to making offers on homes without so much as a peak inside — a tactic Kawamoto employed to acquire some of the properties. All but three of the 61 have sold.

At about the same time in California, where Kawamoto owned 670 houses, he initially gave 30-day lease termination notices to about 600 renters, creating an outcry and an agreement to extend the move-out deadline to 90 days.

And in Kahalu'u, Kawamoto's construction of a vacation home on a 130-acre property angered neighbors who on Christmas Eve 2001 found Kawamoto had blocked access to their carports, a dispute resolved when the city condemned an easement.

Kawamoto said in yesterday's statement that the incidents in California and Kahalu'u were "performed by playing with laws, in unreasonable and inhuman ways, using my name.

"... I have decided to select such people with gentle and warm hearts for my management company, lawyer and all other people concerned. My investments here will be pleasant and enjoyable ones."

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.