First Hawaiian increases earnings 13%, raises dividend

First Hawaiian Bank, just five months removed from its initial public offering, surpassed analysts’ fourth-quarter forecasts, increased its dividend and said its majority stockholder plans to sell more shares.

The state’s largest bank, which has seen its stock rise more than 40 percent since its $23 IPO in August, reported today that net income jumped 12.6 percent as loans rose 7.4 percent to a record $11.52 billion.

First Hawaiian’s new holding company, First Hawaiian Inc., increased earnings to $56.6 million, or 41 cents a share, to beat analysts’ consensus estimate of 39 cents. In the year-earlier period, First Hawaiian earned $50.2 million, or 36 cents a share.

For the year, First Hawaiian had earnings of $230.2 million, or $1.65 a share, just missing its best year ever of $230.5 million in 2009. The bank earned $213.8 million, or $1.53 a share, in 2015.

First Hawaiian, which last traded as a publicly traded company in 2001, also raised its dividend by 2 cents to 22 cents a share. It will be payable March 10 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Feb. 27. The company had announced its first dividend of 20 cents a share in October when it released its third-quarter results.

Separately, First Hawaiian said it will hold a secondary stock offering to enable Paris-based BNP Paribas, which previously owned 100 percent of First Hawaiian, to sell off an undetermined amount of its 82.6 percent remaining stake of the company. All the shares in the offering will be sold by BancWest Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNP Paribas. BNP, which needed to sell off part of its stake of First Hawaiian to generate more capital and satisfy regulatory requirements, raised $557.8 million through the IPO.