American Savings Bank will have to wait until next year before it finds out whether it will become a stand-alone financial institution.
But as the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission mulls over NextEra Energy Inc.’s hotly contested application to buy ASB parent Hawaiian Electric Industries, the state’s third-largest bank keeps moving forward with its daily business operations, including a facilities consolidation plan that ultimately is expected to result in a new headquarters.
American Savings said Friday that the sale of its Kalihi Service Center in September for $7.75 million and continued steady loan growth helped boost earnings 1.5 percent in the third quarter. Net income rose to $13.5 million from $13.3 million in the year-earlier period.
"We’re very much in line with where we expected to be," American Savings President and CEO Rich Wacker said in a telephone interview. "We’ve been able to grow our loan book nicely compared to last year, up about 5 percent year over year (to $4.54 billion). We see even faster deposit growth, up about 6.5 percent year over year (to $4.83 billion). And asset quality remains good (with a 1 percent ratio of nonperforming assets to total assets). So those are the most important things to us businesswise.
"We also continue to make progress on our operational things, particularly the work we’re doing toward being able to get a campus (headquarters)."
American Savings plans to relocate its downtown headquarters to a 62,595-square-foot public parking lot at 300 N. Beretania St. in Chinatown, across the street from Aala Park.
"We’re in the final vetting of all the bids," Wacker said. "We hope to be able to make a decision in the near term. It probably would take as long as two years to build it."
Wacker said the headquarters is not related to the potential spinoff of the bank, which would be required as part of the $4.3 billion NextEra-HEI deal that has been in the works for nearly a year. But there’s no guarantee that the Florida utility will succeed in its bid to acquire Hawaii’s largest utility because of the opposition that the deal has drawn from Gov. David Ige, state agencies and environmental groups.
"We’re trying to go forward regardless of any external things, like the spin," Wacker said. "The deal has a lot of merit and a lot of benefits, so we still believe the deal has a good chance of being approved. But that’s not in our control, so we’re operating the bank as we always have based on the way we stand today."
Wacker said operating alone would benefit the bank, which could become independent for the first time since 1988 when it was purchased by HEI for $113.1 million.
"I think we’re in good shape either way," he said. "Certainly if we are spun off, there are advantages that come with that. We’ll get more income because of some regulatory caps that apply to us today as an HEI subsidiary that wouldn’t apply to us if we were spun out. We would have somewhat more flexibility in the way we use our capital if we were spun out than what we have today. In either event we’ll keep doing a good job for our customers."
The bank’s 64,000-square-foot service center took up an entire block that was bordered by North King Street, Mokauea Street, Naopala Lane and Akina Street. The sale of the property also included the Kalihi branch at 1851 N. King St., which the bank has owned since 1979. Wacker said the bank hopes to maintain a presence in the area.
"(The Kalihi Service Center) was one of our operating centers where our operations and support teams were based," he said. "We’ve been consolidating those down over the last few years to get more people sitting together to what we hope will be to get everyone into one campus building downtown. This is another step along the path to bring our teams together."
American Savings’ sale of the service center property, mortgage banking income and fees related to deposit products boosted noninterest income 21.2 percent in the quarter to $18.5 million from $15.2 million in the year-earlier quarter.
The bank’s net interest income, the difference between interest earned on loans/securities and what is paid out on deposits, rose 4.8 percent to $47.8 million from $45.6 million. Its net interest margin, the spread between loans/securities and deposits, declined to 3.53 percent from 3.62 percent.
American Savings’ earnings were negatively affected by $3 million that the bank set aside for potential loan losses in the quarter, more than double the $1.4 million it set aside in the year-earlier quarter. The increased loan-loss provision was primarily due to loan growth in the commercial real estate portfolio.
American Savings reported its earnings after the stock market closed.
Its parent, HEI, is scheduled to report its full earnings Thursday. HEI’s stock rose 19 cents to $29.26 Friday.
