Central Pacific Financial Corp. continued its turnaround in the first quarter as earnings more than doubled and the once-troubled bank posted its fifth consecutive profitable quarter after three straight years of losses.

The parent of Central Pacific Bank, the state’s fourth largest, had net income of $13.5 million, or 32 cents a share, compared with $4.6 million, or $4.58 a share, a year ago. The results beat analysts’ consensus estimate of 26 cents a share, according to FactSet, a Norwalk, Conn.-based financial research firm.

Revenue rose 7.5 percent to $43.7 million from $40.7 million.

"We’re still cautiously optimistic," Central Pacific President and CEO John Dean said Wednesday. "It’s a tough market out there for all banks, but it’s our fifth quarter of continued growth in earnings, we’re pleased with the results and we look forward to the coming year."

The bank released its financial results before the stock market opened today. Shares rose 2 cents to $13.58 on Wednesday.

Central Pacific, which has been aggressively overhauling its troubled mainland loan portfolio, bolstered its earnings by adding $5 million to income that had been set aside for potential loan losses. It was the fifth straight quarter that Central Pacific had taken a credit in its provision for loan losses on its income statement, having added $11.2 million in the fourth quarter, $19.1 million in the third quarter, $8.8 million in the second quarter and $1.6 million in the first quarter of 2011.

"It indicates that we were well-reserved," Dean said. "While the release of reserves is continuing to decline from $19 (million) to $11 (million) to $5 (million), our earnings have gone from $11.6 (million) to $12.1 (million) to $13.5 (million)."

The bank still has $114.3 million in its loan-loss reserve, which is 5.49 percent of total loans and leases and more than double those of its peer group. It’s down, though, from the 5.91 percent that Central Pacific had at the end of December.

"It (2009 and 2010) was a pretty dark time for us," Central Pacific Chief Credit Officer Bill Wilson said.

In January 2009, the bank received a $135 million bailout from the U.S. Treasury through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that ultimately bought the bank additional time until it could recapitalize itself with a $325 million investment from private equity funds. The Treasury received common stock from the bank as part of that recapitalization but ultimately lost $63.1 million of its $135 million investment when it sold its Central Pacific shares over the past year. Overall, though, the Treasury has made about $15 billion from the TARP program.

There has been some criticism leveled at Central Pacific over the Treasury’s losing investment and a phone call made several years ago by the office of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, when he was an investor in the bank, to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. asking about the bank’s pending application for a bailout.

Dean defended the bank’s participation in TARP and said the results bear him out.

"This is a program put in by the Treasury and net net the Treasury will end up making money through the TARP program and net net the country has benefited from the TARP program," he said. "On some banks, they made money. On some banks, they lost money. If the Treasury had not converted (its preferred shares) to common stock and had this transaction not gone forward with the recapitalization, I question whether we’d be able to survive.

"Rather than be critical, I look at it in a positive sense. This TARP money allowed CPB to not only survive but significantly improve its performance in the last year, and close to 1,000 jobs were saved because of the TARP program."

Assets at the bank last quarter increased 3.6 percent to $4.2 billion from a year ago, while total loans and leases grew 0.7 percent to $2.1 billion and deposits jumped 11.5 percent to $3.5 billion.

Nonperforming assets — or loans delinquent 90 days or more — rose to $205.6 million, or 4.94 percent of total assets, from $195.6 million, or 4.73 percent of total assets, as of Dec. 31. The bank, which had reduced its nonperforming assets over the past two years from roughly $500 million, said the increase occurred because one of the bank’s larger mainland construction and development borrowers stopped paying interest on its loan.

At the end of the quarter, Central Pacific had $281 million in outstanding loans on the mainland with $72 million of that amount classified as nonperforming. In Hawaii, the bank had $1.8 billion in outstanding loans, with $140 million nonperforming.

Dean acknowledged that the bank has a ways to go to bring its financials where he wants them to be.

"The other banks in Hawaii are doing very well and we compliment them," he said. "They’re top-performing banks and obviously we have a lot more work to do to get there. The opportunity to improve ourselves quarter to quarter is greater because we’re coming from a much lower base. Compliments to the other financial institutions on their performance, and our goal is to get there in time."