O'Neill, who announced Monday that he would be resigning effective Sept 1, exercised 212,698 stock options on Wednesday and sold them at prices ranging from $43.62 to $44.10 a share. He paid $27.01 for each option.

Stock options give you the right, but not the obligation, to purchase a share at a specified price. After buying shares at the discounted price — called exercising the option — the holder may choose to sell the stock at current market prices or hold on to them.

O'Neill paid $5.7 million for the shares and sold them for $9.3 million. These stock options would have expired within 90 days of his departure from the bank, company officials said.

After this week's sale of shares, O'Neill still would own 7,044 shares directly as well as 2.5 million stock options, which have different expiration dates.

As of the end of December, O'Neill was most highly rewarded CEO in Hawai'i. His stake in the company, both through directly owned shares and unexercised options, was valued at $101.7 million.

While he has not received a salary in the last two years, O'Neill has profited from shares he bought with $10 million of his own money as well as from options granted to him.

Since his arrival at Bank of Hawaii in November 2000, the bank's stock has quadrupled from a nine-year low of $11.25 a share to a 52-week high of $47.45 on March 8.

O'Neill and his management team improved earnings at the bank by closing down underperforming, noncore operations to concentrate on the local market. Employment fell from 4,100 to 2,800 people, of which 900 worked at out-of-state operations.

Shares of Bank of Hawaii rose by 87 cents to close at $44.78 a share yesterday.