First Hawaiian gives $2.5M to nonprofits

First Hawaiian Bank contributed more than $2.5 million to nonprofits this year with its employees and retirees donating $633,826, a company record.

The state’s largest bank, which has $16.7 billion in assets, said Thursday it now has contributed more than $2.5 million in each of the past four years to achieve its goal of donating $10 million to charity. First Hawaiian said it annually donates money to more than 400 charities in Hawaii, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The bank said 36 nonprofits benefited from the four-week Kokua Mai employee-giving campaign.

First Hawaiian said 98 percent of its employees participated in Kokua Mai this year. Since the campaign’s inception in 2007, bank employees and retirees have donated more than $4.1 million to charities in Hawaii, Guam and Saipan, which is the largest island of the CNMI.

State fifth worst for small-business policy

Hawaii ranks among the bottom five states in the U.S. in terms of policies and costs affecting small business and entrepreneurship.

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, in its 18th annual state policy ranking, put Hawaii at No. 46 among the 50 states, with only New York, Vermont, New Jersey and California ranking lower.

The report ranks states according to 47 policy measurements including tax, regulatory and government spending factors and gives each a score.

The top five states were South Dakota, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming and Florida.

Barnwell narrows loss to $1.6 million

Barnwell Industries Inc., which generates most of its revenue from its oil and natural gas operations in Canada, narrowed its loss in the July-through-September quarter from the same period a year earlier, largely because of changes in the book value of various assets.

The Honolulu-based company reported a net loss of $1.6 million, or 20 cents a share, in its fourth fiscal quarter. That compared with a loss of $5.5 million, or 67 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter, the company said Thursday.

The company reported a $379,000 increase in general and administrative costs primarily due to severance and legal and executive search fees related to hiring a new president of its oil and natural gas subsidiary.

Barnwell shares were unchanged $3.01 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hilton shares jump 7.5 percent in debut

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.’s shares gained 7.5 percent to close at $21.50 Thursday after the hotelier raised $2.35 billion in the largest hotel IPO ever.

The company is the world’s largest hotel group with 665,667 rooms in 90 countries and territories. It operates luxury brands such as the Waldorf Astoria and Conrad Hotels & Resorts but has built much of its recent growth on franchise deals.

Investor demand for initial public offerings has been strong recently with 218 IPOs in the U.S. this year, the most since 2000, according to research and investment firm Renaissance Capital. And Hilton’s offering trumped the $2.1 billion generated by Twitter’s IPO last month, as well as proceeds from offerings by its competitors.

ON THE MOVE

Bishop Museum has hired: 

>> Carol Diebel as senior vice president of public programs. She was previously curator of marine biology at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, director of natural environment at the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongrewa in Wellington, and director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska.

>> Susan Burger to serve as education director. She was previously an associate with David Heil and Associates, a consulting firm specializing in evaluation services and program planning, which included the National Science Teachers Association.