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Text: As always, we appreciate your interest in Central Pacific Financial Corp.
I'd like to comment on some exciting news we sent out yesterday regarding some key executive management promotions to be effective January 1, 2022.
They are as follows: Catherine Ngo, currently President of CPF and President and CEO of CPB, will become Executive Vice-Chair of the bank and the holding company.
Arnold Martinez, currently EVP and Chief Banking Officer, will be promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer of the Bank and the holding company.
David Morimoto, currently Executive Vice President and CFO, will be promoted to Senior Executive Vice President and CFO of the Bank and the holding company.
And Kevin Dahlstrom, currently EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, will become EVP and Chief Strategy Officer of the Bank and the holding company.
Catherine will continue to serve on the CPB Executive Committee responsible for the management of the bank.
Working collaboratively with Catherine and myself, all three of the individuals promoted have played a key role in our financial success the past several years, and I am pleased that they will continue to be part of the team.
Our focus on our four key business pillars will continue as before.
These include residential lending, small business, Japan market development and digital expansion.
We will also continue to be active in the commercial real estate, C&I and consumer segments, with a focus on driving digital solutions to provide an exceptional customer experience.
Our transformation to become a digital first bank is underscored with the upcoming launch of Shaka Checking, Hawaii's first and only digital bank account from a local financial institution.
We are proceeding the November 8th launch with the state's largest ever social media influencer marketing campaign.
We have over 2,000 people on the wait list who are looking to be the first to sign up for Shaka.
Product benefits include the opportunity to get your paycheck up to two days early, a reimbursement of ATM fees up to $20 a month and a higher than average return on funds in the account.
We feel this product and other digital products like it will help to galvanize our position as the digital banking leader in Hawaii.
We will, however, continue to leverage our branch network, updating and modernizing our facility and investing in the talent required to deliver these products to market with the strong customer service we are known for.
Like the rest of the country, the state of Hawaii experienced the spike in COVID case counts in August and September related to the Delta variant.
To address this, our state put in place certain measures to curb further spread of the virus and we are pleased the state has been able to get the Delta variant under control, as we have seen a rapid decline in case counts in recent weeks.
Given this positive trend, earlier this month, the Governor implemented the easing of restrictions on gatherings and events on Oahu.
And last week, the Governor announced welcoming back fully vaccinated domestic travelers for business or pleasure, starting November 1st.
Our statewide vaccination rate has risen to over 70%, as many employers in the state have mandated vaccinations to protect their employees, their customers and the community in general.
With these positive developments, local economists are projecting that visitor numbers will once again continue to rise and Hawaii will have a strong holiday travel season.
The state of Hawaii unemployment rate declined to 6.6% in the month of September and is forecasted by the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism to decline further to 6.4% in 2022.
The housing market in Hawaii remained very hot with our median single-family home price surpassing the $1 million mark this past quarter.
Overall, the Hawaii economy remains on track for recovery.
Our financial results for the third quarter were very strong with quarterly pre-tax income again reaching a new record high.
Our core loan growth picked up as anticipated and we are on track for a strong second half of the year.
Our successful PPP effort continues to deliver strong fee income as forgiveness continues.
Our asset quality continues to be strong with non-performing assets at just 10 basis points of total assets as of September 30th.
Additionally, total classified assets were less than 1% of total loans.
Nearly all of the loans we granted, COVID related payment deferrals have returned to pay status.
As of September 30th, we have just $1.3 million in loans remaining on deferral.
Finally, net charge-offs declined to just $0.2 million in the third quarter.
Shifting to our employees, we are very pleased that 95% of our employees are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
To protect our employees and customers, we started weekly COVID testing in September with a small group of un-vaccinated employees.
We also offered a $500 cash incentive for un-vaccinated employees who got vaccinated after September 1st.
In the third quarter, our loan portfolio increased by $184 million or 4% sequential quarter, which was offset by PPP forgiveness paydowns of $216 million.
Year-over-year, our core loan portfolio increased by 7%.
The core loan growth was broad-based across all loan categories except construction.
Approximately $58 million or 32% of the quarter's loan growth came from Mainland consumer loans.
Our residential mortgage production continue to be very strong with total production in the third quarter of nearly $245 million and total net portfolio growth in residential mortgage and home equity of $72 million from the previous quarter.
PPP forgiveness continues to progress well with 93% of the loan balances originated in 2020 and 40% of the balances originated in 2021, already forgiven and paid down through September 30th.
During the third quarter, we purchased an auto loan portfolio for about $20 million from one of our Mainland auto loan origination partners, and we continued consumer unsecured purchases on an ongoing flow basis based on our established credit guidelines.
The purchase during the quarter had a weighted average FICO score of 750.
As of September 30th, total mainland consumer, unsecured and auto purchase loans were approximately 5% of total loans.
Both our Mainland and Hawaii consumer portfolios continue to perform well.
Our target range for total Mainland loans, including commercial and consumer is around 15% of total loans.
With Hawaii's steady economic recovery, we continue to see a healthy loan pipeline in all loan product categories.
As such, we anticipate ending the year with strong loan growth.
On the deposit front, we continue to see strong inflow of deposits with total core deposits increasing by $267 million or 4.6% sequential growth.
On a year-over-year basis, total core deposits increased by $1.1 billion or 21.6%.
Additionally, our average cost of total deposits dropped in the third quarter to just 5 basis points.
Finally, as the Hawaii economy continues to recover and investment activity increases, we are focused and prepared to help our customers meet their financial objectives.
Net income for the third quarter was $20.8 million or $0.74 per diluted share, an increase of $2.1 million or $0.08 per diluted share from the prior quarter.
Return on average assets in the third quarter was 1.15%, and return on average equity was 14.83%.
Net interest income for the third quarter was $56.1 million, which increased by $4 million from the prior quarter due to core loan and investment portfolio growth, loan and investment yield improvements and slightly higher PPP fee recognition.
Net interest income included $8.6 million in PPP net interest income and net loan fees compared to $7.9 million in the prior quarter.
At September 30th, unearned net PPP fees was $7.9 million.
The net interest margin increased to 3.31% in the third quarter compared to 3.16% in the previous quarter.
The NIM normalized for PPP was 2.96% in the third quarter compared to 2.93% in the prior quarter.
The normalized NIM increase was driven by the increase in the investment portfolio yield, partially offset by an increase in excess balance sheet liquidity.
Third quarter other operating income remained relatively flat at $10.3 million.
During the quarter, there was a decrease in bank-owned life insurance income of $0.7 million driven by market fluctuations.
This was offset by higher service charges and fees.
Other operating expense for the third quarter was $41.3 million, which was in line with the prior quarter.
The efficiency ratio decreased to 62.3% in the third quarter due to higher net interest income.
We remain focused on driving positive operating leverage with our strategic investments to continue to improve our efficiency.
As part of our ongoing efficiency initiatives, we recently announced the consolidation of our Kapiolani [Phonetic] branch into a nearby branch in Honolulu at the end of this year.
We expect annual future savings of approximately $800,000 from this consolidation.
With the continued migration of transactions to digital channels, we will continue to evaluate our branch network and consider both consolidation as well as expansion opportunities in 2022.
At September 30th, our allowance for credit losses was $74.6 million or 1.55% of outstanding loans, excluding PPP loans.
In the third quarter, we recorded a $2.6 million credit to the provision for credit losses due to improvements in the economic forecasts and our loan portfolio.
The effective tax rate was 24.7% in the third quarter.
Going forward, we continue to expect the effective tax rate to be in the 24% to 26% range.
Our capital position remains strong and during the third quarter we repurchased 234,700 shares at a total cost of $5.9 million or an average cost per share of $25.12.
Finally, on October 26, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share, which was an increase of $0.01 or 4.2% from the previous quarter.
In summary, Central Pacific had a solid third quarter and we will continue to leverage our investments and innovate to progress toward our strategic targets, at the same time we maintained our strong credit, liquidity and capital position.
Further, we remain committed to providing support to our employees, customers and the community as we continue to progress through the economic recovery.
Finally and perhaps more importantly, we approach the future with a highly motivated management team with optimism and a sense of purpose.
This team worked together to lead the implementation of RISE2020, a multi-faceted initiative designed to strengthen our position in the market by investing in our branches, ATM and our digital product offerings as well as continued focus on our four primary lines of business.
The results of these efforts are becoming increasingly apparent.
With this team, we are well positioned to build on our past accomplishments and success as we continue to focus on service and value to customers, employees and shareholders.
At this time, we'll be happy to address any questions you may have.
Over to you, Betsy.

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compname reports q3 earnings per share of $0.74.
compname reports $20.8 million third quarter earnings and increases cash dividend.
q3 earnings per share $0.74.
net interest income for q3 of 2021 was $56.1 million versus $49.1 million.

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