First Hawaiian, Inc. (NASDAQ:FHB) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 25, 2024 1:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Kevin Haseyama - IR Manager
Bob Harrison - Chairman, President and CEO
Jamie Moses - CFO
Lea Nakamura - CRO

Conference Call Participants

David Feaster - Raymond James
Andrew Liesch - Piper Sandler
Jared Shaw - Barclays
Kelly Motta - KBW
Anthony Elian - JPMorgan
Timur Braziler - Wells Fargo Securities

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to First Hawaiian Inc's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the call over to Investor Relations Manager, Kevin Haseyama. Please go ahead.

Kevin Haseyama

Thank you, Lateef, and thank you everyone for joining us as we review our Financial Results for the third quarter of 2024. With me today are Bob Harrison, Chairman, President and CEO; Jamie Moses, Chief Financial Officer; and Lea Nakamura, Chief Risk Officer.

We 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 to the most directly comparable GAAP measurements.

And now, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Harrison

Thank you, Kevin.

I'll start by giving a quick overview of the local economy. The overall Hawaii economy continues to be resilient. While Maui continues its recovery for the wildfires, the rest of the states have seen relatively stable tourism numbers and a low unemployment rate.

The statewide seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for September was 2.9%, compared to the national rate of 4.14 -- 4.1%. Through August, total visitor arrivals were down 2.2% and spending was down 2.3% compared to 2023 levels for the same period.

Housing market remains stable. In September, the median sales price for a single-family home on Oahu was $1.1 million, 6% higher than last September. And the median sales price for condos on Oahu was 518,000, 2.8% below the previous year.

Turning to Slide 2, I'll give an overview of our third-quarter results. We're really pleased that the momentum we saw building in the second quarter carried over to the third quarter. Deposit balances flattened out and deposit costs were up only 1 basis point from the second quarter. Unexpected loan payoffs were a headwind for loans in the third quarter, but credit quality remained excellent and assets repriced up, driving margin expansion. Non-interest income continued to be solidified and we continued to exercise good discipline on expenses.