Full Transcript: First Hawaiian Q1 2026 Earnings Call

First Hawaiian (NASDAQ:FHB) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Friday. Below is the complete transcript from the call. This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation. View the webcast at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/u73rxu4c/ Summary First Hawaiian Inc reported a strong start to 2026 with growth in loans and deposits and solid credit quality. The company maintained a return on average tangible assets of 1.2% and return on average tangible equity of 15.3% in Q1. There was a repurchase of approximately 1.3 million shares at a cost of $32 million. Total loans increased by $128 million, driven by growth in commercial real estate and commercial and industrial loans. Net interest income was $167.5 million with a net interest margin of 3.19%, expected to increase slightly in the next quarter. Non-interest income declined due to lower BOLI income and swap fee activity, viewed as timing-related. The bank maintained strong credit performance with a $5 million provision for credit losses and an increase in allowance for credit losses. First Hawaiian Inc expects full-year loan growth between 3% to 4% and non-interest income around $220 million. The company emphasizes community support following recent natural disasters in Hawaii and Guam. Management highlights a stable employment rate and steady growth in tourism and the housing market. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first Hawaiian Inc. Q1 2026 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press Star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press Star one one again. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kevin Hasayama, Investor Relations Manager. Kevin Hasayama (Investor Relations Manager) thank you Josh and thank you everyone for joining us as we review our financial results for the first quarter of 2026. With me today are Bob Harrison, Chairman, President and CEO, Jamie Moses, Chief Financial Officer and Lee Nakamura, Chief Risk Officer. We have prepared a slide presentation that we will refer to in our remarks today. The presentation is available for downloading and viewing on our website at fhb.com in the Investor Relations section. During today's call we will be making forward looking statements, so Please refer to Slide 1 for our safe harbor statement. We may also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures. The appendix to this presentation contains reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measurements through the most directly comparable GAAP measurements. And now I'll turn the call over to Bob thank you everyone for joining us today. I wanted to start by sharing our support for the communities impacted by the recent flooding in Hawaii from the Kona Low storms and Typhoon Sinlaku in Guam and Saipan. It's really important for us to support our communities and we are actively providing relief and support to help our customers and those affected in the relative communities. Moving on to an outlook, the statewide unemployment rate remained relatively stable at 2.2% in January. That compares to the national rate at 4.3% for the same month through February. Total visitor arrivals were up 7.1% compared to last year, primarily due to more visitors from the US Mainland and Japan. Year to date spending through February was $4.2 billion, up 14.8% compared to 2025 levels for the same period. At this point, it's too soon to know how tourism and the local economy might be impacted by the recent global events. The housing market remains stable with the median single family home sales price on Oahu in March at $1.2 million, up 3.4% from the and the medium condo sales price on Oahu in March was $510,000, up 2% from the prior year. Turning to Slide 2, we had a strong start to the year. Loans and Deposits grew, credit quality remained solid and we remained well capitalized. Our return on average tangible assets of 1.2% and return on average tangible equity of 15.3% for the first quarter. The effective tax rate for the first quarter was 22.5%. Turning to Slide 3, the balance sheet remains solid as we continue to be well capitalized with ample liquidity. We remain asset sensitive and well positioned to benefit from a higher for longer rate scenario. During the quarter we repurchased about 1.3 million shares at a cost of $32 million. Turning to slide 4, total loans grew over 128 million in the quarter, up 3.6% on an annualized basis. We had good growth in CRE and CNI loans, partially offset by runoff in residential loan portfolio and payoffs in the construction loan portfolio. Some of the growth in the CRE portfolio and decline in construction portfolio were due to completed construction projects converting to permanent financing. Now I'll turn it over to Jamie. Bob Harrison (Chairman, President, and CEO) Thanks, Bob. Turning to Slide 5, we delivered solid deposit momentum in the prior year and quarter with total deposits increasing by 262 million, driven primarily by growth in public operating balances. Retail and commercial deposits were modestly higher and importantly did not experience the prior year and typical seasonal outflows we have seen at the prior year and start of prior years which we view as a positive signal. Public deposits increased $244 million reflecting higher operating account balances. We continue to see meaningful improvement in funding costs with the first quarter total cost of deposits declining 7 basis points to 1.22%. Our non interest bearing deposit ratio remained healthy at 31%, reinforcing the first quarter strength and stability of our core funding base. On slide 6, net interest income for the first quarter was $167.5 million, down $2.8 million from last quarter. Net interest margin was 3.19%, a decline of 2 basis points sequentially. This reflects the full quarter impact of the December rate cut. As we look ahead, we expect the balance sheet repricing story to continue throughout the year. Turning to slide 7, non interest income totaled $52.8 million for the first quarter. The decline from last quarter was primarily attributed to lower BOLI income and swap fee activity which we view as timing related rather than structural. Non interest expense was $127.9 million and there were no material, unusual or non recurring items in the first quarter. Our expense profile remains well controlled and aligned with our full year outlook. With that, I'll turn it over to Lee to review our credit performance. Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Thank you, Jamie. Moving to Slide 8, the bank continued to maintain its Strong credit performance and healthy credit metrics in the first quarter quarter credit risk remains low, stable and well within our expectations. Overall, we're not observing any broad signs of weakness across either the consumer or commercial books Criticized assets decreased by 21 basis points and nonperforming assets and loans 90 days or more past due were 30 basis points of total loans and leases down 1 basis point from the prior quarter resulting from a decrease in dealer flooring non accruals quarter to date. Net charge offs were $4.9 million or 14 basis points of average loans and leases unchanged from the fourth quarter. The bank recorded a $5 million provision. In the first quarter. The allowance for credit losses increased by just under $1,000,000 to $169,000,000. With a coverage ratio of 1.17% of total loans and leases. We believe that we are conservatively reserved and ready for a wide range of outcomes. Lee Nakamura (Chief Risk Officer) Thanks, lee. Turning to slide 9, we have updated our outlook for key performance drivers. We continue to expect full year loan growth to be in the 3% to 4% range. With the markets now expecting no rate cuts this year, we have revised our full year NIM outlook to be in the 3.22 to 3.23 range. We expect second quarter NIM to be up 2 to 3 basis points from the first quarter. Our outlook for non interest income remains about $220 million for the year. And finally, we expect expenses to gradually increase throughout the year and we continue to forecast full year expenses will be about 520 million. That concludes our prepared remarks. And now we'd be happy to take your questions. Thank you. Bob Harrison (Chairman, President, and CEO) Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Anthony Elian with JP Morgan. You may proceed. Anthony Elian (Equity Analyst at JP Morgan) Great. Thanks Jamie. On the outlook, the drivers of the 2 to 3 basis point sequential increase in NIM and 2Q. Could you help us unpack that a little bit? What's driving that? The range for full year moving higher and is that entirely coming from no rate cuts this year? Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Hi Tony. Good morning. The right answer to that is the balance sheet repricing story that we've had and seen for the last year or two. So again, just to remind everybody, we have about 400 million of fixed rate cash flows that come off every quarter that get repriced at about a 155 basis points spread higher on a weighted average basis between loans and securities and so Tony, that's really the driver as we go forward. Right. So we still are an asset sensitive balance sheet. So we will see a decline in NIM if there is a rate cut, in any given quarter. But then the balance sheet repricing dynamics after that will sort of drive the NIM higher as we go forward. Anthony Elian (Equity Analyst at JP Morgan) Thank you. And then on expense, you reiterated the outlook of 520 million for the full year, but I think 1Q came in a little bit lower than what we were expecting, which would imply a pretty good pickup over the course of the year. Is that the right way to think about it and what are the areas driving the increase in expense? Thank you. Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, I mean it's going to be kind of broad based, Tony, in terms of the areas. Hopefully we'll get some more salary expenses in there. Right. As we've talked about, we're, you know, looking to hire folks, talented folks to come over and drive revenues for us. So hopefully that's where we'll see much of that pickup. But generally broad based and I think you are thinking about it correctly in terms of a little pickup and a ramp as we get throughout the year. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Our next question comes from Jared Shaw with Barclays. You may proceed. Jared Shaw (Equity Analyst at Barclays) Hi. Thanks. Good morning. You know, when you look at the growth, CNI growth has been pretty good. Any specific drivers sort of underpinning that? And can you update us on your appetite for mainland expansion? Any of the hires, Jamie, that you're talking about should we think are coming maybe off island? Yeah. Jared, let me this. Bob, let me start with the loan outlook. You know, really the $71 million in C&I growth for the quarter, about $24 million of that was dealer floor plan and the rest were draws on existing lines of credit, both local companies and mainland companies. So it was really pretty broad based, good growth in dealer flooring, which we appreciate. So we look at that for the rest of the year as being an opportunity, along with commercial real estate to continue to grow. On the hiring? Yeah, we're looking for people all over. Of course we would strongly prefer to hire here locally, but if we are unable to do so, depending on that, we would look to the mainland on the floor planning. Are you seeing utilization get back to more normal levels? I know it was pretty low for a while. Or is that growth coming from expanding the network? We added a new dealer relationship during the quarter, but that wasn't all of it. I think it was a little bit of utilization. So a mix of both. Okay. And then maybe separately you know, the securities yields are still, you know, pretty low. And with the capital, the extra capital you have, would you consider just putting on more of a classical leverage play here or utilize some of the extra deposit growth on securities and sort of pre fund some of that cash flow that's going to be coming off? Or should we really just think that you're going to be reinvesting cash flows as they happen? Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, Jared, I think the answer to that is the latter piece of that. We're just going to be reinvesting cash flows as they come off. No plans to do any sort of restructuring or anything at the moment. And again, at the moment, no plans to expand the size of the securities portfolio either. So, you know, for now it's just going to be that, you know, just cash flows coming off and we'll reinvest them. OPERATOR Great. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from David Feaster with Raymond James. You may proceed. David Feaster (Equity Analyst at Raymond James) Hey, good morning, everybody. Morning. Hey, Dave. I wanted to touch on maybe the competitive side. Bob Harrison (Chairman, President, and CEO) You kind of got a unique perspective. Just kind of curious. Maybe if you could touch on the competitive dynamics both, you know, comparing and contrasting the mainland versus Hawaii. Are you starting to see competition shift from just pricing to, you know, more pushing on structures and standards? Just kind of curious what you're seeing on that front. Yeah. Dave, this is Bob, maybe I'll start off on that. The competitive nature we really haven't seen. It's always been a little bit more competitive, put it this way, cyclically competitive on pricing. So now we're getting a little bit more competitive on price, both primarily on the mainland, but a little bit here. It's always been a bit more competitive on price in Hawaii given the various banks, low loan to deposit ratios. Everybody's got liquidity they're looking to put to work here in Hawaii. So that's always been an issue here. We are seeing it kind of cycle down slightly in our mainland markets. A little bit of that is, say, multifamily construction was higher on a spread a year and a half ago than it is today. So I think that kind of speaks to that. The other thing we're seeing are the larger banks are taking bigger pieces of deals and so there's less available. So there is a little bit more competition for deals themselves as some of the larger banks are increasing their hold levels. Does that address your question? Yeah, no, that's helpful. David Feaster (Equity Analyst at Raymond James) And then, you know, appreciate the, you know, you guys reiterated the fee income guide. I was just hoping you could walk through some of the business Lines, kind of some of the underlying trends and some of the puts and takes that you're seeing there. Maybe I'll start on the wealth side. We're continuing to see really good interactions between our customers and our wealth advisors. So that business has continued to grow year after year for many years now. And so I think that's been a nice opportunity. The fees associated with our credit card business have been pretty stable. You know, there's movement quarter to quarter, a little stronger in Q4, a little less in Q1, but that's pretty, pretty standard as far as what we would expect in that business. Jamie, anything you would add to that? Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Yes, I guess the only thing to add is there's a portion of our BOLI that is market driven. And so that can be somewhat volatile. And we saw that a little bit here at the end of the first quarter with the market kind of underperforming, let's call it. And so less fees are related to that. And then swap fee income in our loan book can kind of also be sort of cyclical just depending on, you know, what kind of lending we're doing in a particular quarter and what our customers want. So I think combine those couple things with all of what Bob mentioned, I think is where you get to on the fee guide. David Feaster (Equity Analyst at Raymond James) Okay. And then maybe just touching on the funding side. I mean, you've had a lot of success. You know, this quarter was great, A lot of benefit from public funds this quarter. I was hoping you could touch on maybe some competition on the funding side and just how you think about gaining share, driving market share growth on the deposit front and what's going to be Bob Harrison (Chairman, President, and CEO) the key drivers of that is do you see more opportunity on the commercial or the retail side? OPERATOR Just kind of curious some of the funding trends you're seeing. Yeah, for that and most well, virtually all of our deposits are here in market and our garbage is just day in, day out getting out there and meeting with customers and prospects and trying to show them the different products and services we offer and see how we can make that work for them. So it really is a ground game, I would call it more than anything else. There's not a lot of magic to it where it would change quarter over quarter. But certainly our folks are out there and trying to meet with customers both on the consumer, small business, the larger business side. All right, thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Kelly Motto with kbw. You may proceed. Kelly Motto (Equity Analyst at KBW) Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. You know, Mickey, on capital, really solid here. I apologize if it was Asked already. But have you guys done any work on the proposed capital changes, the potential impact to your ratios here? Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, we've done a little bit of work on it. We think that it could possibly add maybe like 1% CET1 to our capital levels, levels. But again, proposed and we're not going to change our capital allocation strategy or our plans based on that. But if it goes through the way it is, we think it's about a 1% add. Kelly Motto (Equity Analyst at KBW) Got it. That's really helpful. And then otherwise, I mean, you've been very consistent here with the share repurchase. It seems like that's probably even with the growth having picked up, probably a good expectation. But wanted to hear your thoughts on how you're thinking about that. Thank you. Bob Harrison (Chairman, President, and CEO) Yeah, Kelly, I think you summarized it pretty well for us. Maybe we can hire you to do that again. Yeah, no, I think you nailed it. Yeah. Yeah. So we have the 200 million allocation and we used 34 million in Q1. And so it's not set for timing wise, it's not set for a particular year. And so we're just looking at what makes sense and going forward, just to Kelly Motto (Equity Analyst at KBW) be clear, the amount of the authorization was 250 million. Got it. That's really helpful. And then otherwise, I mean credit looks precede anything to know anything you're watching or pulling away from. Thanks. I don't think anything we're pulling away from just given the uncertainty in the environment, the volatility, the recent natural disaster events that have happened in our footprint. We're just, you know, watching certain portfolios very carefully, but we haven't really seen anything so far. Got it. Thank you so much for the time. I'll sit back. Andrew Terrell (Equity Analyst at Stevens) Our next question comes from Andrew Terrell with Stevens. You may proceed. Hey, good morning. Morning. Wanted to go back a little bit on the margin. I hear you on the near term guide and kind of full year guide. The majority of what underpins that is some of the fixed repricing. Just talk about is there any level of benefit you'd expect or work to do on the deposit base Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) as you move throughout the year, just absent rate cuts, do you feel like you've kind of fully exhausted the ability to reprice lower any other tweaks you could look to make on the funding side? So there's still some ability to work on that in particular with CD pricing, kind of what sort of rolls over every quarter. We've seen a pretty significant decline in sort of the competitive environment around those from say a year or so ago. So we could still see some benefit from that perspective. The, the March deposit number, Andrew, was 120, so a little bit lower than what we had in the quarter. So maybe there is still like you can see the sort of dynamics of the CD repricing around that. So I wouldn't expect it to go too much lower with rates staying the same in totality in terms of deposit costs. But the guide for the year on the NIM is inclusive of any sort of rate actions we might take on the deposit side as well as the repricing story. Andrew Terrell (Equity Analyst at Stevens) Yep, yep. Okay. And then, you know, last quarter you talked about, I think you gave, I forget the specific dollar amount of the fixed cash flows for the year, but roll off yield 4%, new asset yield 5.5%. There's obviously been a lot of rate volatility throughout the first quarter and not asking for total crystal ball, but do you feel like, you know, 5.5% blended new asset yield is still kind of fair assumption based on what you're seeing for loan origination yields and where you're buying securities at today? Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, I think so. I mean it's going to depend quarter to quarter based on what type of lending activity we do in any given quarter. Right. If it's, you know, if activity is primarily in lower spread things, then it might be a little bit lower than that. But for the year, I think 150 is a good number and that 400 million per quarter of cash flows coming off and repricing still is a good number. Andrew Terrell (Equity Analyst at Stevens) Got it. Okay, thanks. And if I could ask just one last one, I think we started talking more about mainland M and A interest last year, some with you guys. And I just wondered if anything's changed there, could you maybe rehash any willingness or kind of appetite or your view of the M and A market as it stands right now? Bob Harrison (Chairman, President, and CEO) Yeah, this is Bob. No updates. You know, we're still talking to people, see if there's things that might make sense. But we haven't really changed our profile or what we're looking for. Really looking for a good fit first and foremost and then take it from there. Great. Andrew Terrell (Equity Analyst at Stevens) Thank you for taking the questions. OPERATOR Thank you. And as a reminder to ask a question, please press Star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler. You may proceed. Matthew Clark (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler) Hey, good morning. Just a couple follow ups here on the cash flows. On the asset side, I know it's 400 million a quarter, but can you give us a split between, you know, loans and securities on Average. Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) And you know, those, you know, we can guesstimate the rates, but I'm just trying to forecast those individual yields. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I guess the right way to think about it is for the year we expected 600 million of cash flows coming off the securities portfolio. So that leaves a billion in cash flows from the loans. And that spread of 155 or 150 that we talked about is inclusive of the other roll off and roll on yield. So in the quarter we added in the securities portfolio in the 490 range of yield and a little bit higher than that, 620 or so on our loan yield. So, yeah, that's. I think, I think that gets you what you need there, Matthew. Matthew Clark (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler) Okay, great. And then just drill into the CDs. Same kind of question, you know, how much do you have coming due here in 2Q and roll off and roll on rates? Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah. So Q2, we're going to have about a billion dollars come due that's currently somewhere in the neighborhood of like a 290 or so CD rate. And then, you know, I think that'll roll over something like in like a 250 weighted average range or something like that. Matthew Clark (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler) Okay, perfect. Thank you. Jamie Moses (Chief Financial Officer) Hard to tell for sure because some folks roll into promos and some folks roll into RAC rates. So don't know for sure around that. But you know, again. Right. I think, I think if you back into the margin guidance that we've given, you can kind of get your way what you need on the CD side of things. Matthew Clark (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler) Yeah. Okay. Yeah, kind of. I'm kind of getting to a nim that's a little bit above what you're forecasting for 2Q so. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Kevin Hasayama for any closing remarks. Kevin Hasayama (Investor Relations Manager) We appreciate your interest in First Hawaiian and please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions. Thanks again for joining us and have a good weekend. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.