Growth in commercial real estate and consumer loans helped boost American Savings Bank’s profit
by 26 percent during the second quarter.
The state’s third-largest financial institution reported $16.7 million in net income Friday, up from $13.3 million in the same quarter last year. The bank attributed the increase to $3 million more in interest income from loans as well as deposit growth.
“Our results through the second quarter demonstrate broad improvement in our profitability with better yields, efficiency, asset quality, and bottom line return on equity compared to last year,” Richard Wacker, ASB president and chief executive officer, said in a news release. “Our balance sheet continued to grow nicely as customers entrusted us with more of their deposits.”
Net interest income — the difference between what the bank pays its customers on deposits and the interest customers pay it on loans — rose 9.7 percent to $55.9 million from $51 million, while noninterest income fell
2.2 percent to $16.2 million from $16.6 million. Expenses grew to $44.6 million, up from $42.6 million a year ago.
Total assets grew 6.8 percent to $6.6 billion from
$6.2 billion, while loans (including growth in the consumer, home equity credit lines and residential loans) slipped 0.3 percent to
$4.74 billion from $4.76 billion. Meanwhile, total deposits increased 9.4 percent to $5.7 billion from $5.2 billion.
“We are overall very happy with the quarter,” Wacker said in an email. “When you look at the first half of the year, we delivered strong profitability improvement compared to the prior year and that positions us well for a good year overall.”
The company was flat on loan growth as a result of exiting some tougher or riskier loans in its commercial loan portfolio, he said.
“That offset growth we saw in the other segments of the loan portfolio. We’ve seen nice improvement in our asset quality metrics as a result,” Wacker said. “The most important thing is that our customers feel good we are supporting their needs, and we feel confident that we are doing that well.”
Meanwhile, construction is underway on the bank’s $100 million Chinatown headquarters across from Aala Park, which will consolidate five separate offices and bring about half the company’s 1,200 workers into a single building.
“Our enthusiasm is really building for the time when we can bring all our teammates who aren’t in our branches together to collaborate better and work even more efficiently for our customers,” he said.
American Savings also is relocating a Kapolei branch in September and moving its Liliha branch to North King and Liliha streets in August. It also is in the middle of building a new branch in Kahului.
The bank is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., which also owns the state’s largest utility.
HEI will report its earnings Thursday.