Central Pacific boosts net, declares 2 dividends

Central Pacific Financial Corp. couldn’t have written a better script.

Nearly left for dead six years ago during the recession, the parent of the state’s fourth-largest bank continued its remarkable turnaround as it posted a 48.3 percent jump in third-quarter earnings, sharply reduced its delinquent loans, declared two dividends and repurchased $4 million worth of stock.

“It’s a great story,” Central Pacific President and CEO Catherine Ngo said Wednesday in a telephone interview ahead of today’s official earnings release. “It reflects a lot of hard work and good discipline here in the company over the last few years. It’s wonderful that now we can focus on building and deepening customer relationships.”

In 2009, Central Pacific needed to borrow $135 million from the U.S. Treasury to stay afloat and then two years later recapitalized the bank by raising an additional $345 million from investors. In March 2010, when current chairman and former CEO John Dean took over, the bank had a staggering $496 million in nonperforming assets — delinquent loans not accruing interest and foreclosed real estate.

But by the end of last quarter, those NPAs were down to $14 million — a decline of about 69 percent from $45.3 million in the year-earlier quarter and down about 97 percent from its peak when it ran into trouble from the California real estate meltdown.

“(The turnaround) starts with the NPA number,” said Ngo, who added the title of CEO to her executive duties on July 1. “We got to this point more quickly than expected. The amount of capital we raised in 2011 ($345 million) contemplated far more credit losses and a protracted period addressing credit issues compared with the experience we actually had.”

Central Pacific has now posted 19 straight profitable quarters following $703.1 million in losses from 2008 to 2010.

In the latest period that ended Sept. 30, Central Pacific had net income of $12.2 million, or 38 cents a share, compared with $8.2 million, or 23 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Loans rose 7.9 percent to $3.10 billion, deposits increased 4.5 percent to $4.23 billion and assets gained 5.7 percent to $5.02 billion.

The bank’s net income was boosted by $3.6 million it returned to its income statement that had been set aside for potential loan losses. In the year-earlier quarter, Central Pacific returned roughly half that amount, or $1.7 million, to its income statement.

“Our positive performance trend continued in the third quarter, with strong growth in loans and deposits, increase in net interest income, further strengthening in asset quality, and our continued progress in realizing operating efficiencies in our organization,” Ngo said in a statement. “As a result of our strong financial performance in 2015 and our confidence in our future performance, we increased our quarterly dividend and declared a special cash dividend.”

Central Pacific boosted its quarterly dividend 16.7 percent to 14 cents a share, from 12 cents. It marks the 10th consecutive dividend that the bank will pay since restoring the payout in 2013. That follows nearly five years without a dividend. The dividend yield represents a 2.5 percent annualized yield based on Wednesday’s closing price of $22.35.

The bank also will pay an additional special dividend of 32 cents a share. Both dividends, totaling 46 cents a share, will be payable on Dec. 15 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Nov. 30.

“We have a capital management policy that we’re paying a quarterly cash dividend that is roughly 35 percent of net income and we’ve been using the remaining 65 percent of net income to repurchase shares in the open market,” Central Pacific Chief Financial Officer David Morimoto said in a phone interview.

Central Pacific repurchased 172,100 shares, or $4 million, of common stock last quarter at an average cost of $23.29 a share under its stock repurchase program. When shares are bought back, they are taken off the market, which increases the value of all remaining shares. CPB shares have climbed 20.2 percent in the last year.

Since reinstating its quarterly cash dividends in 2013, the bank has returned a total of $31.9 million to its shareholders and repurchased $234.8 million of common stock, excluding fees and expenses.