HOW MUCH WORSE CAN IT GET?
Yes, HT recently made a profit. This is huge, but tempered by two facts. First, that the profit came only because they sold their phone directory business. Secondly, on Mar. 28, the Wall Street Journal ran a story titled “Hawaiian Telcom is No Paradise for Carlyle Group.” In sickening detail, the paper highlighted for pretty much the whole planet how insanely wealthy and powerful private equity firm Carlyle Group has made a gigantic mess of things over at Hawai`i’s little old phone company. Riddled with phrases like “money drain for Carlyle,” “headache for customers” and “the company continues to lose phone customers at a rapid clip,” the story obliterates any notion that Carlyle Group—which is so close to the Bush clan and Saudi royal families—had any business taking over our phone company.
RANK PREVIOUS COMPANY
1 1 Alexander &Baldwin
2 2 Tesoro Hawai`i
3 3 Monsanto Hawai`i
4 4 Maui Electric Co.
5 5 Maui Land & Pineapple Co.
6 6 Weinberg Foundation
7 9 Dowling Co.
8 7 Wailuku Water Co.
9 8 Goodfellow Brothers
10 10 Hawaiian Telecom
GOOD NEWS FOR DOWLING?!
And Wailuku-based Dowling Company rises a couple notches this week on news that the company donated $15,000 to Na Hale O Maui, the very good and necessary community land trust that helps make working people into actual homeowners. Dowling’s generosity would have translated into a bigger gain this week, had The Maui News ran more than the Mar. 28 blurb on the gift that was, in truth, pretty weak. MTW
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