A New York publisher, Malcolm S. Forbes, bought Laucala Island for $US1 million ($F2.1m) and was to develop it as a South Pacific meeting centre for business executives.
The directors of Morris Hedstrom Ltd in 1972 said in Suva that Forbes bought the island through a company in the name of Fiji Forbes Inc.
They said they intended to redeploy the surplus resulting from the sale of Laucala Island within the economy of Fiji and that a further announcement about the matter was to be made later. Laucala Island, lying north east of Taveuni, covers 3017 acres and was developed as a coconut plantation.
There was a substantial herd of cattle also on the island. This newspaper on Tuesday, March 21, 1972 published an article about Forbes buying the island as a centre for business executives in the South Pacific. Forbes (53 then) was president of Forbes Inc., the publisher of Forbes Business magazine, which had a fortnightly circulation of more than 600,000 copies in 1972.
He had visited Sydney earlier that year in his private Convair aircraft after spending some time in Fiji and the sale of Laucala was negotiated by Robert A. Hunter of South Sea Lands Ltd, Suva.
AAP-Reuter reported from New York that Forbes said the islands copra plantation would remain in operation and work would begin immediately on building an airstrip on the island.
“We will develop plans for the island for potential use by American business executives, both with permanent home sites and facilities for South Pacific meeting,” he said.
“Lots of companies had divisions which operated in the Pacifi c area and we will have facilities available for executive meetings.”
Forbes said he owned similar facilities in other parts of the world then which included the Battersea House in London, the Chateau of Balleroy in Normandy (France) and a palace in Tangiers (Morocco). He had a 178,000-acre property in Colorado also which was one of the biggest in the US. Forbes said on the Pacific trip during which he began negotiations for buying Laucala Island he launched deals for property in Tahiti and Bali too. He said he was negotiating for property in Australia also, but declined to give further details.
“The 200 Fijians living at Laucala would all remain there because the company would continue with the copra operation,” Forbes said.
“We will probably be employing more Fijians as our own plans develop.”
