City Bank patrons willing to give new CPB a chance
By Dan Nakaso and Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writers
City Bank customers said yesterday they were willing to give the bank's new owners a chance despite the animosity created by a yearlong fight against Central Pacific Bank's takeover bid.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
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.
Alejandro Ramos, a City Bank customer for more than 20 years, is taking a wait-and-see attitude about whether to continue doing business there. "If I'm treated like how I've been treated, then I would stay," he said.
"I like see for a while how they handle my business transactions," Ramos said yesterday after he heard about Central Pacific Bank's acquisition of City Bank. "I might withdraw or I might stay. If I'm treated like how I've been treated, then I would stay."
Ramos' sentiments were echoed among several other City Bank customers yesterday after City Bank announced that it had dropped its opposition and agreed to be bought by Central Pacific Financial Corp. for $420 million.
City Bank's battle against Central Pacific's takeover bid had stirred deep emotions and led to concerns that a merger would hurt customers and employees and limit competition.
As news of the agreement spread yesterday, longtime customers said they were disappointed but willing to give the new Central Pacific Bank a chance.
"I just hope that it is maintained, you know, the small-bank feel, the service to the customers, the promptness, all the things that I had before," said Rose Cruz Churma, the owner of DesignLab.
Churma has been with bigger banks in the past and didn't like the experience of being "lost in the shuffle. ... Maybe the services that I have will still remain, so I'll wait and see what happens."
At a public hearing on the merger in December, Churma wrote that she chose City Bank in 1987 when she opened her small business.
"During those early years, the bank helped us navigate the challenges of operating a new business," Churma wrote. "We were not just another account: Somebody from the bank actually visited our office and found time to give us advice and encouragement."
Other customers such as Travel Ways president Marc Shimamoto, who has been a City Bank customer for more than 20 years, plan to take their business to one of Hawai'i's other locally based banks as soon as the merger becomes official.
At the December hearing, Shimamoto said that City Bank's niche was serving small businesses, such as his.
Central Pacific Bank, Shimamoto testified, "has an ego problem and want this merger to position themselves as a 'BIG' bank and eventually hope to persuade large accounts to join their bandwagon."
Yesterday, Shimamoto was already longing for the old City Bank approach. "It was more the local kind of way of doing business," Shimamoto said.
He particularly didn't care for 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.
He submitted testimony at the December hearing that said the merger would create a larger bank and leave customers with fewer choices in the mid-size range.
"We do not see the benefit for Hawai'i if its people are put out of work and customers have less banking options," Nohara said at the time.
Yesterday, Nohara said he plans to continue banking with the new Central Pacific to see if the culture changes. "We'll see how things work out," Nohara said.
Sidney Lee, owner and president of Hawaii Island Glass Inc. in Hilo, also plans to wait to see how he's treated at Central Pacific Bank before deciding whether to switch to another bank.
"I would just sit on it and see what happens," Lee said. "If they change rates or service changes, then I'll just change banks."
But other City Bank customers, such as Michael Nakayama, don't need to wait.
"I'm very disappointed," Nakayama said. "I'm taking my money out of City Bank."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085. Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2470.
