First Hawaiian, Inc. (NASDAQ:FHB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

David Feaster: Is there any change in the thoughts on rate sensitivity management or hedging? I mean, the impacts from higher rates was better than I think some had feared on the AOCI front. I’m just curious, as you think about managing rate sensitivity, has there been any change in your thoughts just assuming we’re in higher level environment?

James Moses: Right. I wouldn’t say that there’s been necessarily a change. I mean we’re aware of some of the actions that folks have been taking over the past quarter. We’re continuing to monitor those sorts of things. I think as time goes by, it seems like maybe we get more and more open to some changes, but nothing imminent from that perspective. We’re aware of what’s going on out there. We see what people are doing. We understand why they’re doing those things. And every balance sheet is different, and ours is different than others as well. So we’re aware of what’s going on, and we’re continuing to look at it.

David Feaster: Perfect. Thanks, everybody.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Christian DeGrasse with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Christian DeGrasse: Good morning. Thanks for the question.

Robert Harrison: Good morning.

James Moses: Hey, Christian.

Christian DeGrasse: So correct me if I’m wrong, but just looking at the slides and comparing it with last quarter. It looks like that one credit that went into the criticized bucket was in multifamily. We’ve heard some other banks kind of be getting to point to some signs of really early of stress and multifamily just given rising interest rates and pretty expensive funding costs there. Can you maybe just talk about what you’re seeing broadly in your multifamily book as well as, if I’m correct, what is happening and what you’re seeing with that specific credit? Thank you.

Robert Harrison: Well, great question, Christian. This is Bob Harrison. We don’t comment on specific credits, but I think more broadly on multifamily, we’re very comfortable with the underwriting we’ve had over the last any number of years as we’ve kind of pursued that strategy. There was a credit that I think Lea was talking about a very strong sponsorship that she can speak to, I’ll turn it over to her. But I think more broadly, we’re very comfortable with the underwriting we’ve done. In fact, one of the things pressuring our loan balances in Q4 is a number of our multifamily projects are coming to completion, and they’re getting paid off either through refinance or other ways. So that’s, to me, the ultimate judgment on our underwriting as they are performing exactly as we expected them to. Lea, anything to add?

Lea Nakamura : No, I don’t really have anything to add other than we had a strategy going in, right, that we would stick to gateway cities, we would always seek out strong sponsors that we knew very well or if it was a syndicated deal where we knew the bank that was the agent. And so we’ve actually benefited from all that because while we have recognized that in the industry, there are some concerns, we are actually still very comfortable with our position.

Christian DeGrasse: Thank you.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question is a follow-up question from Andrew Liesch with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Andrew Liesch: Thanks for taking the follow-up. Do you have the balance of shared national credits that are outstanding right now?

Robert Harrison: We do. Give us just a minute, Andrew. I think it’s $1.73 billion. That’s actually for the quarter. The Hawaii portion of that went up and the Mainland portion of that went down.

Andrew Liesch: Okay. Very helpful. Thanks so much.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question is a follow-up question from Kelly Motta with KBW. Your line is open.