Critics question quick sale of bank after Maui fires

News admin October 4, 2026 0 Comments

Critics question quick sale of bank after Maui fires

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hawaiian Electric is seeking another rate increase, and critics say parent company Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI) made a mistake when it was under pressure to sell off its biggest asset.

Two years ago, lawmakers wanted HEI to sell off American Savings Bank (ASB) to help Hawaiian Electric recover from the Maui wildfires and pay its share of the Maui wildfire settlement. Critics now say HEI was too hasty and didn’t get enough money from the sale to private investors.

Bank goes public

American Savings Bank leadership and employees celebrated its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange last month.

“Well, we just opened up on the New York Stock Exchange, commemorating our first day being a publicly traded company,” CEO Ann Teranishi said in an ASB video news release.

The stock opened at around $18 a share, and the bank is now worth more than a billion dollars. That is raising questions among Hawaiian Electric critics who are opposing a $170 million rate increase before the Public Utilities Commission.

At a hearing on Maui, Ian Chan Hodges, a business innovation consultant, asked, “Why did HEI sell a profitable and valuable asset for such a steep discount?”

Sale questioned by lawmakers

American Savings Bank was sold on New Year’s Eve 2024 for a value of about $450 million. The money was needed to help Hawaiian Electric repair damage and pay $2 billion into the Maui wildfire settlement fund. Within weeks, lawmakers were questioning whether the price was too low.

State Sen. Angus McKelvey said in March 2025, “I’ll just be blunt, you know, how come it was such an undervalued sale?”

McKelvey also said, “Given that it was worth so much more there would have been interested entities that would have seen that and potentially paid more which then of course makes you guys financially stronger. Right?”

Lawmakers wanted the bank sold before they voted to protect HECO from future disasters.

Jason Benn, Hawaiian Electric chief transformation officer, responded, “We sold the bank for the maximum amount of money we could get at this time. So that’s what the market provided and as the parent company went out to shop it, the valuation of it was far higher than if you look at the metrics of banks.”

Stock value increase

After the sale, in less than two years, the value of the bank stock went from $450 million to nearly $1.2 billion after going public — a 164% increase compared to other local banks with far more modest growth.

Maui resident Hodges says that proves Hawaiian Electric could have gotten half a billion dollars more in the sale, which could have helped control rates and help victims.

Chan Hodges said, “For them, we can call this a fire sale. Fire sale probably has a bitter meaning. And so in my view, hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of American Savings should have gone to them and instead went to select mainland investors and insiders who had access to the deal and they became substantially wealthier as a result.”

It is unclear whether the debate over the bank sale price could be held against Hawaiian Electric, which says it needs the $170 million from ratepayers for continuing improvements to prevent fires and to shore up its long-term finances.