City Bank customers split over new ownership
| • | City Bank approves Central Pacific offer |
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Some City Bank customers worried today that the local-style approach they've grown used to over the years would disappear under Central Pacific Bank's new ownership while others said they don't expect to see much change.
Many City Bank customers who opposed the merger said today they plan to stay with City Bank when it becomes Central Pacific Bank and will hope it retains the old customer-friendly attitude.
Others such as Travel Ways president Marc Shimamoto, who has been a City Bank customer for over 20 years, plan to take their business to one of Hawai'i's other locally based banks as soon as the merger becomes official.
"City Bank's management style was something I could associate with," Shimamoto said. "It was more the local kind of way of doing business."
Shimamoto particularly didn't like the way Central Pacific CEO Clint Arnoldus dealt with what had initially been a hostile takeover attempt.
"The way Mr. Arnoldus handled the situation, it's difficult for me to stay with a bank that's run by someone with his management style," Shimamoto said.
Glenn Nohara, president of Koga Engineering & Construction, Inc., always felt like one of the larger fish in City Bank's relatively smaller banking fishbowl.
"If you're a $20 million company in a bank that has most of its business with companies doing $100 million to $500 million per year in business, you don't get as much attention as if we were a $20 million company in a bank that really specializes in companies in the $10 to $15 million range," Nohara said. "That's our feeling."
Like others who opposed the merger, Nohara worries that the new bank will lose its local, personal feel.
But both publicly traded banks, Nohara and others said, already were controlled by Mainland stockholders.
So Nohara plans to continue banking with the new Central Pacific to see if the culture changes.
"We'll see how things work out," Nohara said.
Alejandro Ramos, who retired as a chef and owner of his own travel agency, will keep on driving to the Kalihi City Bank branch four minutes from his home — for now.
"I like see for a while how they handle my business transactions," Ramos said. "I might withdraw or I might stay. If I'm treated like how I've been treated, then I would stay."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
