Lau to step in as American Savings CEO

By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer

After nearly 15 years with Hawai'i's third-largest financial institution, longtime American Savings Bank chief executive Wayne Minami is stepping down.

Constance H. Lau frequently had been mentioned as a candidate to succeed Wayne Minami when he retired as CEO at American Savings Bank. Yesterday, it became official. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Minami made the announcement to shareholders yesterday at the annual meeting of parent company Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.

"It was time for a change," said Minami, who plans to go fishing and travel more with his new-found free time. "The bank is in a situation where it can continue to grow under Connie, so I feel good about leaving at this time."

In his years as chief executive, Minami took a second-tier savings and loan institution and turned it into one of Hawai'i's biggest financial service companies with 68 branches, nearly 150 ATMs and $6 billion in assets. American Savings under Minami has been solidly profitable, earning some $41 million in 2000, 15 percent higher than in 1999.

With the transition to a new chief executive, little is expected to change at American. The company's focus will remain the same and company officials said the goals set by Minami will not change under the new leadership.

Lau, 48, is a Punahou graduate and received her undergraduate degree at Yale University. She has a master's in business from Stanford University and a law degree from Hastings College in San Francisco. She also serves as a trustee for Kamehameha Schools and Punahou Schools along with several other nonprofit foundations.

"I feel very fortunate that I am the one that has the opportunity to lead the bank into the future," Lau said.

"I am going to tell (employees) we are going to be the premier retail bank in Hawai'i," Lau said. "It's a solid institution, but it can be a lot stronger. There is no magic in doing that. It's just a lot of hard work."

When Lau takes over the 75-year-old institution June 1, she will be only the second chief executive at American Savings Bank since it was sold by Utah-based American Mutual Savings & Loan in 1988.

Founded in 1922 on the Mainland as a building and loan company, it opened its first Hawai'i office three years later.

Through mergers and acquisitions, American had grown 24 branches statewide by 1978 and was the first savings and loan in Hawai'i to reach $1 billion in assets.

Minami led the charge to turn American into a savings bank in 1987 and later helped sell the company to HEI the following year.

"That was a very good deal that allowed us to grow," Minami said.

Additional growth came through development of the bank's existing retail business, but it was Minami's dramatic acquisition of Bank of America Hawai'i's business in 1997 that propelled American Savings and Minami into Hawai'i's banking elite.

The deal increased American's asset base by $1.8 billion and doubled the number of deposit accounts to 600,000 almost overnight.

"That was the toughest part," Minami said, reflecting on the transition that was needed.

Still, Minami leaves a legacy of being a neighborhood banker, especially to those who viewed his career from inside the company. He is known as an unassuming manager who cooked pancake breakfasts for employees in his corner office while working to close billion-dollar deals.

"I am grateful to Wayne's dedication to the bank, its employees and customers. We will miss him and wish him well in his retirement," said Robert Clarke, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Hawaiian Electric Industries.

Clarke met with Minami last summer, as he had for many years, to discuss succession plans. Many times Lau's name, along with a few others, were thrown into the discussion as possible successors. But this time, Minami agreed it was time to retire and decided to bring Lau over from HEI to begin the transition.

The son of an 'Aiea hog farmer and homemaker, Minami treated such negotiations and business operations with a great deal of personal interest and attention, but left the details to his officers and executives.

Outside of American Savings, the assessment of Minami is similar. Some in the banking community see him as a visionary leader who foresaw that the industry was entering a period of consolidation, and had the personal force to push his institution to the top.

"He took American to another level," Wayne Miyao, a senior vice president at City Bank.

Miyao said the industry is changing and leaders must change with it. Miyao said recent changes to rules governing financial institutions have brought down the walls separating banks and thrifts from insurance firms and brokerage houses have made banking all the more complicated.

Before joining American in 1986 as an executive vice president of Hawai'i operations, Minami served as state attorney general under Gov. George Ariyoshi and as state director of regulatory agencies between 1974 and 1978, now the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

"(Minami) has been talking to me for years about retiring," said Walter Dods, chairman and chief executive officer of BancWest Corp., the state's biggest banking company. "It's a normal transition."