May
10
Corporate earnings, kama’aina style
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9
There is usually nothing duller than a transcript of a conference call in which executives explain their quarterly results to industry analysts. But now and then there is an exception.
The following is from a conference call this week, in which executives of Hawaiian Electric Industries answered analysts’ and investors’ questions about their higher earnings.
James Bellessa of D.A. Davidson & Co. questioned American Savings Bank President Tim Schools, who is new to the job and comes from the mainland, and HEI CEO Connie Lau, who is local.
Bellessa: “You indicated that it is possible that loan loss reserves may be higher in the future. Is this $900,000 level for the first quarter a low point, and maybe higher from there?”
Schools: “Yes. That is just a prudent disclosure based on what is happening in the economy… our non-performing assets are 0.18%, okay? …I am not saying we are not going to have charge-offs, but if Hawaii got hit hard and the tourism really sank and hotels laid off and people had a hard time with their cash flows, people would go past due on their mortgages, but mortgages typically are the very last thing that goes delinquent. And so, if you stack up 0.18% versus the industry, it would be, I forget the Hawaii word for it, but it would be very small.”
Lau: “Manini.”
Schools: “My little son always talks about the Manini fish. He knows more Hawaiian than me.”
Bellessa: “That is pretty small, then?”
Lau: “That is very small, nominal.”
I suspect this is the first time anyone has defined “manini” as “nominal.”
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