Bank of Hawaii Corporation (BOH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Aloha, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Bank of Hawaii Corporation. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded and the recording be made available after the meeting on the company's website. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Peter Ho, Chairman, CEO and President of Bank of Hawaii Corporation. Mr. Ho, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. I'm Peter Ho, and on behalf of our Board of Directors and management, I welcome you to this, our 50th Annual Meeting of Shareholders and our third virtual shareholder meeting. Due to the global pandemic and our concern for the public's health and safety at the time we set the date of the Annual Meeting, we determined that it was in the best interest of all to conduct our annual meeting virtually. It's now 8:30 a.m., and in accordance with the Notice of Meeting, I will call the meeting to order. Now I'd like to introduce the Board of Directors of Bank of Hawaii Corporation who are all in attendance by phone: Raymond P. Vara, our Lead Independent Director; Haunani Apoliona; Mark Burak; John Erickson; Joshua Feldman; Michelle Hulst; Kent Lucien; Elliot Mills; Alicia Moy; Victor Nichols; Barbara Tanabe; Dana Tokioka; and Bub Wo. I'd like to recognize 2 very special individuals, our former Lead Independent Director and Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, Mary Bitterman; and former Vice Chair of our Audit and Risk Committee, Robert Huret, who retired from the Board 2 years ago, have been serving as Directors Emeriti since their retirement due to the unprecedented times we've been living in. Mary Bitterman served 38 years and Robert Huret 22 years. Mary Bitterman and Robert Huret have now concluded their service as Directors Emeriti. I would like to thank them for their continued service through the global pandemic. Now I'd like to introduce our management team, beginning with our Vice Chairs: Marco Abbruzzese, Sharon Crofts, James Polk, Mary Sellers and Dean Shigemura; and our Senior Executive Vice Presidents, Guy Churchill, Matt Emerson, Ruth Erickson, Jill Higa, Susan Ing, Patrick McGuirk, Craig Norris, Taryn Salmon, Dana Takushi and Dirk Yoshizawa. I'd also like to introduce Mike Ching and Nathan Lee representing Ernst & Young, our independent public accounting firm. You'll see the agenda on the meeting website as well as a link to the rules of conduct for the meeting. We appreciate your cooperation in abiding by the meeting rules. As a reminder, shareholders attending the virtual meeting can vote their shares online from now through the closing of the polls by clicking the Vote icon on your screen. If you have previously voted by proxy and do not wish to change your vote, your vote will be cast as you previously instructed and no further action is required. During the business portion of the meeting, we will consider the following 3 proposals: first, the election of the company's directors; secondly, the advisory vote to approve the compensation for the named executive officers; and finally, the ratification to reappoint Ernst & Young to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022. We will follow the formal business with our company report and current state of business. Following our report, you will have the opportunity to ask some questions. We ask that shareholders who wish to address the meeting do so at that time. Now let's proceed with the meeting. The Board of Directors fixed February 28, 2022, as the record date for determining the shares of common stock entitled to vote at this meeting. The company's Corporate Secretary has advised me that the meeting was called and proper notice was given to all shareholders of record. A copy of the Notice of Annual Meeting and an affidavit of the mailing are on file. The number of shares represented in person or by proxy is 34,567,439 or 86% of the 40,391,183 shares issued and outstanding as of the record date. I hereby declare a quorum is present. We are qualified to act on all matters set forth in the Notice of Meeting. Most of you who returned your proxies authorized the persons named in the proxy to vote on all proposals coming before the meeting. We will now act on the recommendations of the Board of Directors relating to the proposals listed in the proxy statement. The first proposal is the election of 14 directors. The 14 nominees will serve a 1-year term. They are as follows: Haunani Apoliona; Mark Burak; John Erickson; Joshua Feldman; myself, Peter Ho; Michelle Hulst; Kent Lucien; Elliot Mills; Alicia Moy; Victor Nichols; Barbara Tanabe; Dana Tokioka; Ray Vara; and Robert Wo. As no other persons have been nominated in accordance with the company's governing documents, the nominations are now closed. The second proposal is to approve on an advisory basis the compensation of the named executive officers disclosed in this year's proxy statement. The final order of business is to ratify the reappointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2022. Before I report the preliminary vote results for these 3 proposals, has everyone who wanted to vote cast their vote? [Voting]

It seems that all of those desiring to vote have voted. I therefore declare the pollings -- the voting polls closed. I've been advised by our inspectors of election that in accordance with the proxies received from our shareholders, each of the director nominees received substantially -- a substantial majority of votes cast of at least 28,267,345 votes in favor or 94% of the votes cast. With respect to proposal 2 related to the advisory vote on executive compensation, approximately 24,058,370 shares voted in favor or 80% of votes cast. With respect to proposal 3 related to ratifying Ernst & Young as the company's 2022 independent registered public accounting firm, approximately 33,558,778 shares voted in favor or 97% of votes cast. Since we have received more than a majority vote in favor of each nominee and each proposal, I am therefore very pleased to announce that all 14 of the company's directors have been elected for a 1-year term, and the 2 remaining proposals have been approved by the Board, as recommended. The final results of the voting will be published in our Form 8-K and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There being no further business to come before the meeting, this concludes the official portion of the meeting. The 2022 Bank of Hawaii Corporation Annual Meeting is now adjourned. We'll now move to a quick recap of 2021, and then we'll be happy to take your questions. We finished with a strong financial performance in 2021 despite having to navigate the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for a second consecutive year. Core loans grew 6.2%, deposits grew 11.8%, and we remain well capitalized with strong asset quality and liquidity. We also achieved record-breaking earnings. Diluted earnings per common share were $6.25 for the full year of 2021 compared to $3.06 in 2020. And net income was $253.4 million, up 64.7% compared to 2020. We announced a public offering of $180 million in preferred stock, achieving some of the best pricing in the marketplace for 2021. Additionally, Bank of Hawaii continues to deliver an unbroken history of shareholder dividends. In the third quarter of 2021, our Board of Directors increased the quarterly cash dividend to $0.70 per share from $0.67 per share. Based on our strong financial profile, leading market position in Hawaii and keen focus on conservative credit risk and expense management, we are proud to have our long-term deposits rated AA3 and our business line credit assessment rated A2 by Moody's Investor Services as of December 20, 2021. These ratings are among the best in the industry. In addition, we were recognized as Hawaii's Best Bank in 2021 by the readers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaii Tribune-Herald, West Hawaii Today and Hawaii Home + Remodeling magazine. Going forward, as we hopefully transition from a posture of responding to the vagaries of a novel coronavirus to one of living within a more predictable environment, we see great opportunities. And the investments made during the past several years by Bank of Hawaii in people, technology and resiliency position us extremely well to continue to deliver shareholder value into the future. And now we'd be happy to entertain your questions. Well, it appears that we have no further questions or no questions. I want to thank you for your interest in Bank of Hawaii and please stay well. Aloha.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.