Posted on: Wednesday, August 8, 2001

Bank of Orient's head quits after few weeks

Advertiser Staff

The head of Bank of the Orient's Honolulu operations has quit the company after only weeks on the job.

Manuel Nova, who ran Bank of America's Hawai'i community development banking operations until that bank merged with North Carolina's NationsBank and decided to close that business last year, resigned late last month after returning from Bank of the Orient's corporate headquarters in San Francisco.

Nova, who was hired by the Bank of the Orient in late May, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Bank officials confirmed that Nova, 45, is no longer with the company, but declined to comment further.

Bank of the Orient was the winning bidder for the former Bank of Honolulu's assets after it was seized by federal banking regulators in October.

Bank of Honolulu had been struggling financially for years Its former chairman and largest stockholder, Sukamto Sia, had been arrested on bankruptcy fraud a few weeks before the government seizure and is awaiting trial.

When Bank of the Orient took over, Bank of Honolulu had $53 million in deposits. Deposits continued to slide through May to $48 million, Nova said at the time.

To cut costs, the Bank of the Orient is closing its main office in the Davies Pacific Center and consolidating those operations with its downtown branch in the Dillingham Transportation Building on the corner of Queen and Bishop Streets later this month.