Isle water company latest to go public

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Shares in Hawaii's newest publicly traded company fell today after a strong first day of trading yesterday.

Honolulu entrepreneur Marcus Bender took his Hawaiian Natural Water Co. public, with an initial public offering of 2 million shares on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market.

The issue raised about $8 million for the company, which has been selling Big Island artesian water under the Hawaiian Springs brand name since early 1995.

The stock, issued at $4 a share, went as high as $5.25 before closing at $5 yesterday, when 16,600 shares traded hands. Today 13,800 shares were traded and the stock closed down 121/2 cents at $4.871/2, according to Bloomberg News.

Bender, who originally planned to use natural spring water to brew beer, switched to selling water instead and launched the company in late 1994 as pure bottled water surged in popularity.

The company uses water filtered down from Mauna Loa into the spring at Keaau, south of Hilo, where Hawaiian Natural Water has its bottling plant on 14.5 acres of leased land.

Most of the product is sold in Hawaii but some is sold on the mainland and Japan.

It has also been selling water in the Middle East.

In an April 18 prospectus describing the upcoming stock issue, the company said it had sales of $866,000 last year, up 47 percent from $588,900 in 1995, and lost $1.2 million last year after a loss of $740,900 in 1995. The company said the losses were due to interest on interim financing as well as expansion costs.

Hawaiian Natural Water has 10 employees including Bender, president and chief executive. One is a manager at the bottling plant at Keaau and the rest are at company headquarters in Honolulu.