Bank of Hawaii Chief Executive Officer Peter Ho said the company is not yet in a position to increase its dividend and that a planned exit from American Samoa is still in a holding pattern.
The head of the state’s second-largest bank told shareholders at their annual meeting Friday that the bank wants to solidify its financial position further before raising its quarterly payout from 45 cents a share. Bankoh has been stuck on that dividend since December 2008 when it boosted it from 44 cents one year after the start of the Great Recession.
"We’d love to get the dividend up," Ho said, "but a dividend is different from a stock repurchase. A stock repurchase you can do when you have the opportunity to do it. Dividends tend to be longer-term commitments. So we’ll increase the dividend when we get a very, very strong sense that we’ve got the right earnings to support that dividend and not until then. I think we’re heading in that direction, but we’re going to wait here for a little bit."
In 2013 Bankoh had net income of $150.5 million, down 9.4 percent from $166.1 million in 2012. During the first quarter of this year, Bankoh’s earnings rose 7.3 percent to $38.6 million from $36 million in the year-earlier period.
Ho also said the bank feels like "a yo-yo" regarding its American Samoa situation after announcing in November 2012 that it would close its two branches there in the first quarter of 2013. Even though the bank subsequently closed the smaller Tafuna branch as scheduled, it twice delayed its decision to close the remaining Utulei branch. Then, following a plea from American Samoa Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga, the bank agreed to keep the Utulei branch open indefinitely until a suitable replacement bank can be found.
"We were getting out and became aware of certain situations marketwide that really gave us pause to rethink our decision there," Ho said. "There was nothing from a regulatory standpoint preventing us from moving out, but we did realize if were going to move out completely, that would have a pretty damaging effect potentially on the local economy, mostly for the payment system. And absorbing that, we came to the conclusion that until we have a viable opportunity to exit the marketplace without creating that sort of impact on the economy … (staying there) is something we need to do."
Ho acknowledged that Bankoh was not losing money from its operations in American Samoa, where the bank had been since 1969.
"It’s just not as efficient an operation we’d like to have in our portfolio of operations," he said. "We just feel that the right thing for us to do is to give that community (more time). They’re a long ways away, there are a lot of people that don’t have a lot, and we want to make sure that we’re taking care of them until there’s an opportunity for someone else to come in and support them."
The exit of Bankoh would deprive the territory of its only U.S. bank, delay cash checking and make it more difficult to send and access money, officials have said. Bankoh’s extension has provided a local startup bank, Community Bank of American Samoa, additional time to complete its setup requirements.
Community Bank surveyed American Samoa organizations this week to gain additional information of their banking needs that the startup company said will be valuable as it progresses through the process of gaining regulatory approval.
Australian-based ANZ, owned by Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, is the only other bank in the territory.
