A Hawaii company that owns three Honolulu office towers trimmed its financial loss last year but remains under pressure to raise capital and avoid defaulting on roughly $300 million in debt that matures later this year.

Pacific Office Properties Trust Inc. reported a loss of $14.3 million last year compared with a $17.4 million loss the year before, according to a report submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.

The results represented an 18 percent improvement, but continued a string of annual losses for the company that in January announced that it had retained a real estate investment banking firm to find an investor or investors to put possibly more than $100 million into the company and become its majority owner.

The effort to raise capital is complicated by Pacific Office’s need to refinance, extend or pay off $320 million in mostly mortgage debt that matures between August and December.

Ernst &Young LLP, an accounting firm that audited Pacific Office’s financial statements, noted that the mortgage debt totaling $266 million raises “substantial doubt” about Pacific Office being able to continue meeting its financial obligations.

Larry Taff, Pacific Office president and CEO, said the auditor’s cautionary language was necessary but doesn’t reflect efforts to take care of the maturing debt.

“We’re confident about being able to refinance the loans,” he said.

Pacific Office’s three wholly owned properties are Waterfront Plaza, Davies Pacific Center and the Pan Am Building. Waterfront has a $111 million mortgage maturing on Sept. 11. Davies has a $95 million mortgage maturing Nov. 11. And Pan Am has a $60 million mortgage maturing Aug. 11.

The company also owes $30 million on promissory notes to Pacific Office’s five founders and a $25 million debt to First Hawaiian Bank — both of which also mature later this year.

The company reported having $3.8 million in unrestricted cash and $4.5 million in restricted cash at the end of last year.

Taff said in January that the company is looking to attract more than $100 million in equity in return for as much as an 80 percent stake in Pacific Office while Shidler Pacific Advisors, a Honolulu firm that includes Taff, would continue as operating partner in the company.

Pacific Office previously sold buildings to generate cash. But the company cannot sell its three remaining prime buildings until 2018, under an agreement with Jay Shidler, a local real estate investor who formerly owned the buildings and formed Pacific Office as a way to build a bigger portfolio of properties using capital in the public stock market.

Shidler formed Pacific Office in 2008, but the timing coincided with the U.S. economic recession. An effort to expand Pacific Office’s portfolio, which at its peak included 24 properties, failed in part because of difficulty selling new stock. Instead, Pacific Office ended up selling or losing most of its buildings to foreclosure as it dealt with financial losses.

Besides the Waterfront, Davies and Pan Am properties, Pacific Office owns 5 percent stakes in a building at 1833 Kalakaua Ave. in Waikiki and a building in Phoenix.

Shares of Pacific Office, which hit the market at about $7 in 2008, closed at $1.40 on Friday before the earnings announcement. Shares in the past 52 weeks have closed between a low of 11 cents on June 22 and a high of $1.75 on Jan. 20 about a week after the announcement about the effort to sell a majority stake in the company.