First Hawaiian Bank may go public with stock offering ADVERTISING First Hawaiian Bank may go public with stock offering HONOLULU (AP) — The parent company of Hawaii’s largest bank is considering taking First Hawaiian Bank public. First Hawaiian Bank said
First Hawaiian Bank may go public with stock offering
HONOLULU (AP) — The parent company of Hawaii’s largest bank is considering taking First Hawaiian Bank public.
First Hawaiian Bank said in a statement Wednesday BNP Paribas Group announced it’s considering an initial public offering for its Hawaii subsidiary.
The statement says the stock offering could take place next year after corporate restructuring.
First Hawaiian Bank has nearly $19 billion in total assets. It has 57 branches in Hawaii, three on Guam and two on Saipan.
It was founded in 1858 and is the state’s oldest and largest bank in terms of total assets and deposits.
BNP Paribas is a multinational bank based in Paris.
Ex-mortuary owner jailed for withholding death benefits
HONOLULU (AP) — A former Honolulu mortuary owner accused of withholding funeral reimbursements for people in Medicaid-funded state assistance programs has been sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Claus Hansen was sentenced Tuesday and has been ordered to pay $50,000 to Hawaii’s crime victim fund.
Hansen pleaded guilty in October to seven counts of felony theft for failing to distribute death benefits to family members. He had originally been charged with 20 counts of theft, three counts of money laundering and six counts of racketeering.
The state Medicaid program had paid survivors as much as $800 in death benefits to help fund funeral costs.
“Customers were promised refunds once the State Medicaid program paid benefits to Hansen,” said Deputy Attorney General Michael Parrish. “Instead, Hansen instructed his employees not to contact the survivors when the money came in or to ignore them if they didn’t pester the mortuary for their promised refund.”
Officials said Hansen’s bank statements indicated he failed to pay as many as 161 beneficiaries totaling more than $90,000 from April 2009 to May 2013. Hansen has already paid most of the money back.
“I respectfully accept the responsibility for these actions that I’ve done and I’d like to take this time to express my heartfelt apology to the court and to my customers for not processing refunds in a timely manner,” Hansen said in court Tuesday.
Since Hansen’s case, the Department of Human Services Med-Quest Division has amended its Funeral Payments Program to no longer filter reimbursements through service providers.
Hansen sold the Honolulu Mortuary and Casket Company in November.
State’s highest court rules in favor of Oahu development
HONOLULU (AP) — The Hawaii Supreme Court has upheld a decision by a state commission to add nearly 12,000 homes on farmland on Oahu’s Ewa Plain.
The court’s ruling Tuesday rejects an appeal brought by opponents of the project in 2012 against the state Land Use Commission. The project’s developer, D.R. Horton, can now move ahead with converting more than 1,500 acres of farmland into residential property.
Hawaii Sen. Clayton Hee and representatives of the Sierra Club made the appeal, claiming the development violated state laws that call for the preservation of agricultural land. The project’s opponents argued that the commission should have adopted rules to designate the agricultural land under a 2005 law before choosing to urbanize the site.
In the appeal, opponents also found the commission to be in violation of its own rules that prohibit urbanizing farmland if developing the land hinders agricultural production or is not crucial to accommodating population growth.
Horton officials maintain that the project is necessary to accommodate the growing population. They have argued that farmers displaced from the site could relocate to land in the Wahiawa area where they could maintain agricultural production.
The developer plans to break ground on the project next year.
