RANK    PREVIOUS    COMPANY



    1              

  3             Maui Electric Co.

    2              

  1             Tesoro Hawai`i

    3              

  2             Maui Land &

Pineapple Co.

    4              

  7             Weinberg Foundation

    5              

  4             Alexander &

Baldwin

    6              

  5             Makena Resort

    7                 6             Dowling Co.



    8              

  8             Wailuku Water Co.

    9              

  9             Monsanto Hawai`i

   10               10            Hawaiian Telcom







OIL DROPS



Tesoro is in a bad spot, which is why it drops a notch this week.

You know, they’re making less money these days because the price of gas

is dropping—a lot lower on the mainland than here, to be sure, but it’s

dropping nonetheless. And it looks to drop even further, given that the

price of crude oil dropped below $60 a barrel last week. Oil for less

than $60 a barrel?! Credit Suisse reporting that it doubts oil will

rise above $70 in the next three or four years!? What’s so big about

Big Oil if the stuff is so cheap? And how’s a company like Tesoro

supposed to fight off rumors that it’s manipulating the price of oil in

a brazen attempt to make the Republicans in Congress look good if it’s

losing so much money?

BUILDING COLLAPSING?



More bad news for the island’s biggest landowners and developers

accounts for the further dropping of ML&P, A&B, Dowling and

Makena Resort. “Hawai`i’s construction cycle is at a turning point,”

reports the University of Hawai`i Economic Research Organization,

according to an Oct. 6, 2006 Honolulu Advertiser story. “With home

appreciation largely over and affordability much eroded, the real

volume of residential construction activity will being to recede

gradually.” Home appreciation largely over? Affordability much eroded?

Turning point? Can things really be that bad? While one of the UH

economists says that things aren’t that bad—“We’re not talking about

something that will derail the economy,” he told the Advertiser—the

paper was quick to point out that most analysts thought 2007 was going

to be a growth year. Uh oh…  MTW