Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So again, probably just too early to determine.

Kelly Motta: Got it. Thanks for the color. And then I guess excluding Maui, how should we be thinking about the outlook for growth next year.

Peter Ho: Yes, we think that long growth similar to last quarter’s view is going to be reasonably tepid. I mean, unless the Fed just gets really aggressive with rate cuts, which we’re not anticipating. I think that the consumer is still going to be impacted somewhat by what they perceive to be higher rates. Interestingly, mortgage rates in the low sixes don’t seem to be too terribly outside of historical norm if you go back years and years, but still I think that’s having a negative impact on demand on the consumer front. We did have a reasonably good C&I quarter, so there is activity in the marketplace. Construction had a reasonable quarter as well, though that’s a small portfolio with a lot of our low income housing projects.

But we’re really kind of the big driver of our commercial portfolios, commercial real estate. And people there are — the market’s doing fine, but transactionally, I think, people are just kind of sitting on their hands for now and waiting to see which way interest rates take out, which way the recession or the economy shakes out recession or expansion or just kind of soft landing. So I wouldn’t anticipate a whole lot of activity before — until maybe the backend of this year.

Kelly Motta: Got it. I appreciate all the color. I’ll step back. Thanks again.

Operator: That concludes the question-and-answer session. At this time, I would now like to turn the call back to Cindy Wyrick for closing remarks.

Cindy Wyrick: Thank you, again, everyone, for joining us today and for your continued interest in Bank of Hawaii. As always, please feel free to reach out either Chang or to me if you have any additional questions or need further clarification on any other topics discussed today. Thanks again, everyone, and have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.