When the real estate meltdown left Central Pacific Bank on the brink of collapse more than three years ago, it restructured its loan portfolio and raised $325 million in investor capital to stay afloat.

Now the state’s fourth-largest bank with $4.8 billion in assets has more capital than it can use and its loans are growing at a double-digit-percentage clip, albeit from a smaller base.

Propelled by an 18.6 percent year-over-year increase in loans and leases, Central Pacific marked its 13th straight profitable quarter in the first three months of 2014 even as its net income fell to $9.8 million, or 23 cents a share.

In the first quarter of 2013, Central Pacific had a profit of $137.3 million, or $3.25 a share, but that was inflated by a $119.8 million noncash tax benefit stemming from losses recognized in 2008 through 2010. Central Pacific lost $703.1 million during that three-year period.

The bank also bought back $68.8 million in stock from shareholders last quarter through a tender offer, with separate agreements to purchase $56.2 million in shares from its two largest shareholders to be reflected in the bank’s second-quarter results. The total repurchase was $125 million that will reduce the bank’s outstanding shares to 35.9 million from 42.1 million at the end of 2013.

"Obviously when we raised the ($325 million in) capital, we had anticipated continued loan losses and we didn’t expect our ability to grow back earnings so quickly," Central Pacific President and Chief Executive Officer John Dean said Wednesday ahead of the earnings release scheduled for Thursday.

"We have been fortunate in exceeding our original projections and sitting on capital that I don’t think we can deploy or put to work for several years," Dean said. "We want to continue to have good-quality loan growth and we know of no way to grow the bank that quickly and bring in good quality. So we made a decision in the best interest of our shareholders to buy back shares. And even after the $125 million buyback, we will remain by the regulators’ definition a ‘well-capitalized bank.’"

Central Pacific’s loans grew to $2.70 billion last quarter from $2.27 billion in the year-earlier period with commercial loans up 37.7 percent and consumer loans ahead 103.8 percent. The bank’s loan portfolio also was less dependent on its participation in the purchase of shared national credits, which are a pool of loans underwritten by other entities and put up for sale on the investment market.

"At the outset we were probably more weighted on our shared national credits," Central Pacific Chief Banking Officer Lance Mizumoto said. "As we progressed through the year (2013), our main drivers were in the local market — residential mortgage and consumer loans as well as our commercial loans."

In Hawaii, residential loans were up 18.1 percent during the first quarter, consumer loans increased 54.6 percent and commercial loans gained 14.6 percent.

"The Hawaii economy has been stronger and we’ve seen benefits from that," Mizumoto said. "The other growth driver is our calling offices have been more actively calling our customers and prospects in the marketplace."

Central Pacific’s net income last quarter also was affected by returning to its income statement $1.3 million that it previously had set aside for potential loan losses. In the year-earlier quarter, the bank returned to income $6.6 million from its loan-loss reserve. Before taxes, the bank also had $15.3 million in income last quarter compared with $17.5 million in income during the first quarter of 2013. Excluding those two items, Central Pacific had $14 million in first-quarter earnings, up 28 percent from $10.9 million in the year-­earlier quarter.

"We are pleased in terms of our quarter-on-quarter improvement, but I think what we’ve shown is a consistency in continuing to improve our earnings over the last three years and continuing to improve our efficiency ratio (how much it costs the bank to make a dollar in revenue)," Dean said. "We continue to be on plan but we still have much work to do with the bank in terms of wanting to be a top-performing bank in the country."

Last quarter, the bank’s efficiency ratio, expressed in cents, improved to 69.5 cents from 74.95 cents in the year-earlier quarter.

Central Pacific also continued to reduce its nonperforming assets — loans 90 days or more delinquent. At the end of the first quarter, the bank had $371.5 million in outstanding loans on the mainland, with $23.4 million of those nonperforming. In Hawaii, it had $2.3 billion in outstanding loans with $30 million of those nonperforming assets.

Separately, the bank said it has expedited the planned opening of its 37th branch and, contingent upon regulatory approvals, is planning to open a branch in Manoa Marketplace sometime this quarter in the site formerly occupied by a now-closed Bank of the Orient branch.

Parent Central Pacific Financial Corp.’s stock slipped 3 cents to $19.18 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.