American Savings Bank profit climbs 26% in second quarter

Growth in commercial real estate and consumer loans helped boost American Savings Bank’s profit by 26 percent in the second quarter.

The state’s third-largest financial institution reported Friday it had $16.7 million in net income, up from $13.3 million in the year-earlier quarter. 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 on deposits and the interest it receives 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 mortgages) 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.

American Savings is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., which also owns the state’s largest utility. HEI will report overall financial earnings on Thursday.