A&B's total profit for the three months ended Dec. 31 was $17.2 million, or 38 cents a share, compared to $13.4 million, or 30 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.
Revenues of $331.8 million for the latest three months were up 28.5 percent compared to $258.2 million in the year-earlier period.
A&B said its operating results increased because of improved performance at California and Hawaiian Sugar Co., its sugar refining and marketing business headquartered in California.
Fourth-quarter revenue from food products rose 74 percent, compared to the 1995 quarter.
Sugar sales were up and so were prices. Costs were lower at the C&H refinery, A&B said. "The expected improvement at C&H continued in the fourth quarter, with holiday-based purchases again making that period the strongest of the year," said John C. Couch, A&B chairman, president and chief executive officer.
There were some unusual events at Matson in the final quarter of 1995 that boosted earnings, skewing the comparison with the latest period. The 1995 quarter's results had included extra revenue from the start of a new Guam-Pacific service and there was also substantial interest income as the company temporarily held cash from the sale of Matson Leasing Co., A&B's container leasing business.
In the most recent quarter, those factors weren't present. Matson, which produced half of A&B's overall revenues in the latest quarter, has been experiencing work disruptions on the West Coast docks since the implementation of a new ILWU labor contract in the fall.
That added to the shipping company's costs in the fourth quarter. So did increased fuel costs, the company said. Matson increased its fuel surcharge to 1.75 percent in December and will raise rates 3.5 percent Feb. 2.
In the fourth quarter container volume was almost the same as in the year-earlier period but automobile shipments were down 11 percent, the company said. Matson had an operating profit of $16.7 million for the latest quarter, compared to $23.2 million in the 1995 quarter.
A&B's food products business, producing 44 percent of the company's total fourth-quarter revenues, showed an operating income of $13.2 million, a turnaround from a loss of $8.2 million in the 1995 quarter.
For all of 1996, A&B reported a net profit of $65.3 million, or $1.44 a share, an increase of 17 percent from $55.8 million, or $1.23 a share, in 1995. Last year's revenues totaled $1.23 billion, up 20.6 percent from $1.02 billion in 1995.
"When we consider the 1996 results in the context of Hawaii's lackluster and uncertain economy, we are pleased with the progress we have made," said Couch.