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HEI profits
jumped 50.2%
in quarter
Significant gains at its American
By Russ Lynch
Savings Bank unit buoyed the results
Star-Bulletin
Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. today reported a 50.2 percent increase in its fourth-quarter profit, as strong performance at its American Savings Bank subsidiary continued to make up for a small increase at Hawaiian Electric Co.
Reporting after the stock market closed, HEI said its net for the three months through Dec. 31 was $31.7 million, or 98 cents a share, compared to a net of $21.1 million, or 66 cents a share, in the final quarter of 1998.
Fourth-quarter revenues were up 13.4 percent at $287.9 million from $253.8 million.
Operating income in the latest quarter was $64.6 million, up 24.7 percent from $51.8 million in the year-earlier quarter. Earnings from utility operations were up 2.6 percent at $43 million in the latest quarter, compared to operating earnings of $41.9 million in the 1998 quarter.
The results from operations alone at American Savings showed a 1999 fourth-quarter profit of $14.5 million, up 25 percent from a year-earlier $11.6 million. For all of 1999, HEI had a net profit of $96.8 million, or $3.01 a share, up from a net of $84.8 million, or $2.65 a share in 1998. The gain for 1999 included $4 million from reversing a reserve it had set aside for the disposal of its residential real estate business.
Full-year revenues last year were $1.06 billion, up 3.09 percent from $1.02 billion.
Robert F. Clarke, HEI chairman, president and chief executive officer, said earnings from continuing operations for 1999 were down slightly ($92.9 million from $94.6 million in 1998). Clark said utility sales were up last year but increases in maintenance and depreciation expenses brought utility earnings down 7 percent for the year.
