
Larry Ellison Buys Most of Lanai - ssclafani
http://hawaii.gov/gov/newsroom/press-releases/governor-statement-on-lanai-sale
======
uvdiv
He just wouldn't be a _proper_ Bond villain without a volcanic island lair.

~~~
magicofpi
I should point out that, although Lanai was formed millions of years ago by a
volcano, there aren't actually any active volcanoes on that island. The only
active ones are on the Big Island (also known as Hawaii).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Hawaiian_volcanoes>

~~~
nicholassmith
There's always someone coming in with facts that ruins the wonderful ideas.
I'm going to pretend it is an active volcano and Larry Ellison is actually
Hank Scorpio.

~~~
yolesaber
Larry Ellison is not a good enough boss to be Hank Scorpio.

------
rdl
From an environmental perspective, a single landowner like this, who isn't
going to put it to intensive development or use, is probably the best thing
which could happen to a place like Lanai, other than becoming a park or nature
preserve of some sort.

~~~
mceachen
What kind of assurances do we have that he won't develop it?

Seems like the ONLY assurance is to have it under the state or federal park
program.

Note that this was not public land -- it had been owned by the Hawaiian
Pineapple Company and then Castle & Cooke, so this is not a public to private
ownership transfer.

Wikipedia has the details: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanai>

~~~
raintrees
I live in California, US and I keep seeing news paper articles warning each
year that our State Government is short on cash and considering sale of State
Land...

I also read of the added costs of cleanup after the latest meth-lab/pot-farm
bust finds terrible accumulated waste and in some cases, caustic chemicals
left behind... Illegal operations have little incentive to be kind to the
land.

------
jpeg_hero
Why is Ellison the only billionaire that does the type of things that kids say
when they say:

> You know what I'd do if I had a billion dollars....

~~~
beedogs
Because he's kind of immature, like a kid.

~~~
kamakazizuru
Why is wanting to have his own Island immature?

~~~
malkia
Only giants own islands

~~~
idleloops
None of us should be land owners. Stewards maybe. Unless there's enough to go
round.

~~~
planetguy
The fact that there isn't enough to go round is why we _do_ have land
ownership. See also: Tragedy of the Commons, et bloody cetera.

------
draggnar
The guy he bought it from, who was once homeless and destitute:
<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Murdock#section_1>

~~~
jdh
What a great American dream story. How tragic the death of most of his
children, I'd bet he'd trade the $B to change that.

------
damoncali
I once read that Ellison had very little wealth outside of his Oracle
holdings. In fact, that he had borrowed against his stock in order to make the
vast majority of his enormous purchases. Does that mean there will be one hell
of a fire sale in Hawaii should Oracle hit the skids? And what sort of mind
must one have to borrow upwards of a billion dollars rather than just sell
some shares?

~~~
caladri
It's a common financial strategy among the fabulously-wealthy. Selling shares
would incur all kinds of taxes, but he can get a line of credit with a
reasonable interest rate quite easily, pay no income taxes, and actually
deduct the interest he pays from his taxes. So he carries a lot of debt but
it's all backed by assets and paying the interest is tolerable.

Yes, if that's what he's doing, then in the event that his assets utterly
evaporate he'll be in a spot of bother. But it's a pretty well-trod path, and
probably some non-trivial portion of his assets are quite stable and reliable
and not terribly volatile. I won't pretend to know the precise details of his
situation, but living off a line of credit isn't at all uncommon and perhaps
isn't even unreasonable (from the perspective of financial self-interest
alone) for a person in his position.

~~~
damoncali
Funny, though - Were I in his position, I'd just sell the stock, pay the taxes
and own whatever it was I wanted to own. Perhaps that says something about why
I am not in his position.

------
wheels
Here's the web cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hawaii....](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hawaii.gov/gov/newsroom/press-
releases/governor-statement-on-lanai-sale&hl=de&prmd=imvns&strip=1)

~~~
GigabyteCoin
This is all it really says:

HONOLULU – Landowner Castle & Cooke has filed a transfer application with the
Public Utilities Commission. Castle & Cooke owns 98 percent of the island’s
141 square miles. The buyer is Lawrence Ellison, co-founder and chief
executive officer of Oracle Corporation.

Governor Neil Abercrombie today released the following statement: “It is my
understanding that Mr. Ellison has had a long standing interest in Lana'i. His
passion for nature, particularly the ocean is well known specifically in the
realm of America’s Cup sailing. He is also a businessman whose record of
community involvement in medical research and education causes is equally
notable.

“We look forward to welcoming Mr. Ellison in the near future.”

~~~
Angostura
Anyone know who owns the remaining 2% and whether this places any restrictions
on what Larry can and can't do with the island?

~~~
hdctambien
It looks like there is a town on the island. I would guess that he doesn't own
that land.

~~~
powertower
I wonder if it would be legal for him to erect a 20' high electric fence (with
barbed wire on top) around the lands of the town, so they can't get out on his
property.

~~~
jojopotato
I would imagine that there is an easement agreement of some sort on the island
for residents.

------
rexreed
Lanai also happens to be the island where Bill Gates got married.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lana%27i#Tourism>

~~~
GigabyteCoin
A new business venture for Ellison, perhaps?

------
nicholassmith
Lets be honest, if you'd just lost a very public scrap with Google wouldn't
you want to buy yourself something nice to take your mind off it?

------
ryanwaggoner
This one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanai>

~~~
rudyfink
<http://goo.gl/maps/wHTS> \- Google Maps

------
tptacek
What?! NO FAIR. Nobody told me it was for sale!

~~~
excuse-me
Well for a mere $75m you can have a Canadian one
[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/story/2012/06...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/story/2012/06/05/bc-island-for-sale.html)

Not quite as hot or sunny but the scenery is nicer and you are surrounded by
Canadians!

~~~
jonah
The seller, Craig McCaw just spent $35m on a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO[1] and his
ex-wife lives a couple streets over from me.

[1] [http://www.autoblog.com/2012/06/02/1962-ferrari-250-gto-
made...](http://www.autoblog.com/2012/06/02/1962-ferrari-250-gto-made-for-
stirling-moss-becomes-worlds-most/)

~~~
rmckayfleming
Nice car, awful colour.

------
mikezupan
In other news.. Oracle increases licensing fees to charge per mhz.

~~~
suresk
Just so long as he promises to film a video montage of him enjoying it and
presents it to us during a keynote at OpenWorld/JavaOne, like he does with his
yacht.

------
kleiba
_Mr. Ellison [...] is also a businessman whose record of community involvement
in medical research and education causes is equally notable._

Hear, hear.

~~~
thechut
What exactly does "community involvement in medical research" mean?

~~~
jfoutz
As much as i would like to say it means he performs experiments on orphans in
a super villain like way, i'm pretty sure they're referring to this
<http://www.ellisonfoundation.org/>

And actually, the orphan thing is more of a reddit joke. I'm sure Mr. Ellison
is a pretty amazing guy.

------
jquery
Why the hell is it even for sale?

~~~
_delirium
Almost all the property on the island was acquired by Dole as a pineapple
plantation back in Ye Olden Days when it was easy for Dole to do that sort of
thing (1920s), and somehow the property has never gotten broken up in the
decades since then, so Ellison just bought it from the til-now-current owner,
who owns it via a chain of purchases from Dole and subsidiaries.

~~~
jquery
Thanks for the explanation. This is a vivid demonstration of wealth
concentration writ large, maybe it will wake people up.

~~~
sp332
Wealth concentration isn't inherently bad. In fact I'm sure Ellison will not
abuse it dramatically.

~~~
jellicle
Sure it is. If we have an economy of ten people, it is _inherently bad_ for
one person to control 100% of the wealth while 9 people starve to death. That
is, in fact, _inherently bad_.

To put it another way, we know that the marginal utility of wealth decreases
as wealth increases. Therefore under the standard principle of greatest good
for the greatest number, social good is maximized when wealth is evenly
distributed.

~~~
philwelch
The marginal utility of _consuming_ wealth for one's personal use diminishes,
but empirically that is not what the wealthiest people do. They give their
wealth away in intelligently measured ways. It's quite possible that giving 10
million random middle-class Americans more of Bill Gates' money would do less
good than Bill Gates has done with it trying to solve the whole malaria
problem.

~~~
afterburner
So all wealthy people are Bill Gates now? Even in the US that's laughable.
Start to venture into the rest of the world, and it's a pretty ridiculous
notion.

------
superchase
Something's wrong when one man can buy up a sizable portion of an entire
state. Also, Larry Ellison is stealing the ancestral homelands of the Native
Hawaiian people. This sale should be blocked, and the land re-distributed
among the people of Hawaii. AT very least, sold to hundreds of buyers, not
one. This is just one more example of cannibalistic unbridled capitalism at
its finest, devouring all that it can because it can. Mr. Ellison, give the
land back to the rightful owners of Hawaii, the aboriginal peoples there. It's
not yours.

------
ChrisGammell
When I was in Hawaii back in February, one of the cabbies thought it was going
to be Bill Gates who might buy it because he had gotten married there.

That's a damn shame.

------
citricsquid
Would this mean that he becomes the "ruler" of the island. I don't see it
mentioned on the wikipedia page, does the island have any form of government
or do the residents control everything? That also raises the question can he
remove people from the island? I would assume that the condition of the sale
means that people can't just be evicted/deported (not sure the correct term
here) but maybe not.

~~~
planetguy
He just owns some land. The fact that the land happens to be on an island
doesn't make it any different to the position of any other landholder.

He doesn't even have his own county -- the land is in Maui County.

~~~
gonzo
Technically Maui is both a city (the whole island) and county (Maui, Lanai,
Molokai, Kahoolawe)

and no, I didn't put the okina(s) in. Fuck that noise.

~~~
kamechan
you know it was more work to type "and no, I didn't put the okina(s) in. Fuck
that noise." than to put the okina(s) in, right?

~~~
planetguy
Perhaps, but he wouldn't have had a chance to protest about the stupid ongoing
attempt to incorporate a pointless, one-use extra character into the English
language.

The Hawaiian language has never had a written form apart from the English
alphabet, so why they think they can go round sticking new characters into it
is beyond me. I already know how to pronounce "Hawaii", you don't need a
freaking apostrophe in there to remind me.

------
darylteo
Could he technically start a new country? XD

~~~
sp332
Historically, secession from the union is frowned upon. See: the bloodiest war
in US history. On the other hand, my former employer Dean Kamen did jokingly
found his own country on North Dumpling Island and signed a non-aggression
pact. He seceded when he was denied a permit to build a wind turbine.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dumpling_Island>

~~~
citizens
That's pretty interesting. I'm curious: If he founded his own country, why did
he need a permit?

Edit: Oh, right.

~~~
mahyarm
Seceding from a country and seceding from a city seem like two different
things.

------
waterlesscloud
I would love to own the other 2%.

------
badusername
How much did he buy it for? I'd think a couple billion, at least.

~~~
planetguy
Another article says that the asking price had been previously reported as
between 0.5 and 0.6 billion.

Let's keep this in perspective. It may have a nice view, but it's only ninety
thousand acres. That wouldn't even put him in the top hundred landholders in
the US.

Fun fact: Nicole Kidman's family owns twenty-two million acres of land.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Interestingly, this report shows that 90,000 acres would put him in the
running for top 100 landowners in the US.

[http://208.106.193.21/documents/property_pdfs/Top100Landowne...](http://208.106.193.21/documents/property_pdfs/Top100Landowners.pdf)

The list Jeff Bezos as #27 with 290,000 acres. Huh.

~~~
philwelch
The list is by acreage and not value, though. Which makes Bezos' position on
the list pretty funny, since the neighborhood Amazon is based in--South Lake
Union--is owned by Paul Allen.

------
at-fates-hands
Looks like he now has a place to swim with the dolphins and Marc Benioff now.

------
mtgx
Good compensation reward after losing the trial with Google, I guess.

------
wavephorm
Current owner retains right to build a wind farm to power Oahu through an
undersea cable:

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/06/20/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/06/20/national/a193724D96.DTL)

------
excuse-me
Ellison is buying his own volcano island?

Watch out if he installs a monorail and buys a white cat !

~~~
sneak
It's the beard, isn't it?

------
shellox
I thought HN is a site for news which are interesting for hacker and computer
fanatics. Turned out that information, which would better fit in a boulevard
magazin, are also published here.

------
idleloops
Who has land rights to a brand new volcanic island?

------
ilaksh
I don't care what people think Ellison has accomplished, no one should get to
have their own island when we have so many starving homeless people.

Its amazing to me that its so easy for people to justify that.

Larry Ellison is a crook, an asshole, and a liability to the technology
community.

Oracle is a scam. But then again, so are most things in this so-called
'civilization'.

