HEI net drops
7.5% despite
bank’s gain

Its electric utility profits
decreased 6% in the quarter

Star-Bulletin staff

A drop in Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.'s utility business contributed to a 7.5 percent decrease in fourth-quarter net profit.

HEI reported a net of $21.1 million, or 66 cents a share, for the three months through Dec. 31, compared with a net of $22.8 million, or 72 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenues for the quarter were down 0.8 percent at $372.3 million, from $375.2 million in the 1997 final quarter.

The company's shares closed down 25 cents today at $38.621/2 on the New York Stock Exchange.

HEI said its operating income from Hawaiian Electric Co. and its other utility businesses came to $41.9 million for the latest quarter, a decrease of $2.7 million, or 6 percent, from $44.6 million in the year-earlier period.

American Savings Bank's operating income of $11.6 million was up $3.2 million, or 38 percent, from $8.4 million in the 1997 quarter. However, the 1997 quarter included a one-time cost of $4 million ($2.4 million after taxes) from the acquisition of Bank of America's Hawaii business in December 1997.

For the full year, HEI reported a net profit of $84.8 million, or $2.65 a share, down 1.9 percent from a net of $86.4 million, or $2.75 a share, in 1997.

Full-year revenues of $1.49 billion were up 2 percent from $1.46 billion in 1997.

The year-to-year comparison was skewed by an after-tax charge of $23.6 million, connected with HEI's shut-down in September of its Malama Pacific real estate business.

The charge was countered to some extent by an after-tax gain of $13.8 million from a settlement with insurance companies related to a formerly owned insurance subsidiary.