First Hawaiian, Inc. (NASDAQ:FHB) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Timur Braziler: Great. I guess last for me, just TCE rebounded north of 6% here, regulatory capital looks pretty good. Any reconsideration for buyback or any incremental thoughts on initiating a buyback?

Robert Harrison: Yeah. Timur, this is Bob. Yes, we did get approval from the Board for a $40 million buyback plan for 2024, so that is available to us. And that will be certainly something we’re considering. We are above the kind of 12% CET1 number that we’ve been talking about the last several years. There’s still — we feel a reasonable amount of uncertainty in the environment. We’re not yet up on a year from the failures of those three banks. So we’re going to be a little bit cautious, but we’re certainly very aware of being comfortable with our capital levels, having the ability to do share repurchase during 2024. And we’re just going to continue to look at that and evaluate it as we go through the year.

Timur Braziler: Great. Thanks for the questions.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Kelly Motta with KBW. You may proceed.

Kelly Motta: Hi. Thank you so much for the question.

Robert Harrison: Hey, Kelly.

Kelly Motta: Hey. Maybe I don’t think we talk yet much about credit, obviously, metrics remain really strong. Just wondering what you’re watching at this stage, any changes in how you’re viewing certain portfolios? And any kind of expectations for what credit normalization could look like over the next two years or so?

Robert Harrison: Kelly, great question, and maybe I’ll start and then turn it over to Lea. We’re watching that very closely. Some of the office issues we talked about mid-year last year have been resolved. There’s still no — that’s area of high attention that we are paid to it not only on the credit side, but also the line officers. We continue to stay very close to the customers in the commercial side, but in particular, the commercial real estate. As I mentioned in the comments, there is some normal function going on. We are getting paid off from construction deals. They had moved from construction into mini-perm as they got fully leased up, which for a little while there, a couple of years ago, you recall they were just getting paid off as soon as construction completed.

So it’s now back to a more normal environment to me, which is healthy. On the rest of the commercial side, we’re still seeing strength in a lot of the areas that we talked about. Consumer, we are starting to see a little bit of weakness for the indirect and cards, but kind of back to normal in a sense. And maybe a last comment before I turn it over to Lea is, as she mentioned in her comments, just to highlight, we haven’t really seen a lot of impact from Maui. So something as well we’re watching closely. But Lea, anything you’d add to that?

Lea Nakamura: No, I don’t really have much to add. What I will say, though, is we actually are quite pleased with the performance of the portfolio even in this environment. We continue to watch certain pieces very carefully because you hear about the headline numbers and you think about how it impacts our borrowers. But so far, we really haven’t seen the kind of, I guess, weakness that we thought we would at this time in the cycle.

Kelly Motta: I really appreciate all the color here, guys. Maybe one more from me. Just wondering if you’ve evaluated the regulatory proposals interchange and overdraft and kind of if you started to make any preliminary estimates on what the impact could be to you and if you’re doing any changes with your fee structure in response to that?

Robert Harrison: On the interchange side, we haven’t done a full analysis, Kelly. I mean, it’s something we’re looking at, something we don’t agree with, basically, in principle, and we’re supporting the ABA’s (ph) position and the standard taking in that. So I think that’s important. We’re evaluating it from a mid-size bank coalition perspective as well and will likely support it, but the ABA is positioned because — but having said that, we’re also starting to do the analysis of what it would be because we have to be responsive to it. It is in the rule-making process, which means it will take some time to come into effect and not knowing exactly what the final outcome will be. We’re still kind of waiting to get a better idea because doing the analysis, I think, is fairly straightforward once we have an idea of what the final will be.

Kelly Motta: Great. Thank you. I’ll step back. Most of my questions have been asked and answered. Appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Christian DeGrasse with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.

Christian DeGrasse: Hi. Thanks for the question. Putting the public deposits to the side for a second, can you maybe provide some context on how your commercial and retail deposit rates have performed alongside the rising rate cycle and how you expect repricing to react relative to that when rates ultimately start to fall?

James Moses: Yeah. For the most part, again, I guess, Christian, I’ll just kind of go back into it, we have kind of a few different segments the way we think about in both the retail and the commercial side of the world. And there’s a segment or a portion of balances that’s rate sensitive, and there’s a portion that’s there for operating accounts and EDA working capital, that kind of thing. And so on the way up, they got the benefit of rates on the way up pretty much in a 100% kind of beta scenario. And so on the way down, that the expectations are very similar that we would be able to reduce those rates as well. Again, the portion of deposits that we have that are in that 100% beta is probably — like if you think about it around numbers, it’s probably like 80% of what our floating rate loans are.