The merger between Central Pacific Bank and City Bank means that Lihu‘e’s City Bank will be closing in early 2005, but the CPB location will stay right where it is. More importantly, City Bank’s customers are now Central Pacific’s customers,
The merger between Central Pacific Bank and City Bank means that Lihu‘e’s City Bank will be closing in early 2005, but the CPB location will stay right where it is.
More importantly, City Bank’s customers are now Central Pacific’s customers, and their employees are now CPB employees.
City Bank will close all their neighbor island branches, which could affect approximately five City Bank employees. Even though CPB promised to open a new branch for every overlapping branch created by the merger, there are no plans to relocate the CPB, particularly because they just remodeled their location.
The current City Bank location on Kaua‘i is inside the Ace Hardware/Ben Franklin Crafts store on Rice Street in Lihu‘e, and the CPB location is at the corner of Rice and ‘Umi streets, also in Lihu‘e.
Neither bank’s employees will be involuntarily laid off and all will be offered jobs or separation packages that include a lump-sum payment of six months salary, plus additional pay based on length of service, up to a maximum of two years salary. Also, they can get 18 months of medical and dental benefits.
The merger will physically take place during the first quarter of 2005, when the two banks are consolidated under the Central Pacific Bank name.
First-quarter 2005 changes include: the opening of a new Central Pacific Bank branch in Maui, the relocation of the City Bank branch in Kapolei and consolidations into Central Pacific Banks in nine overlapping areas with the closures of the CPB branch in Kailua (O‘ahu) and City Bank branches in downtown Honolulu and Lihu‘e, among other places.
Company officials did not disclose specific locations for additional new branches, but indicated that spaces for branches in nine areas located on Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, and Maui are currently being negotiated or studied for feasibility at this time.
The company also said that it hopes to achieve its branch expansion plan within the next five years.
Upon the merger of the banks in the first quarter of 2005, the combined bank will operate 37 branches throughout Hawai‘i, with 31 branches on O‘ahu, two on the island of Hawai‘i, three on Maui, and one on Kaua‘i.
Central Pacific will acquire all of City Bank’s outstanding shares at $91.83 each. Central Pacific Financial Corp., is a Hawai‘i-based bank-holding company with approximately $4.4 billion in assets.
Central Pacific Bank and City Bank, its principal subsidiaries, are Hawai‘i’s third- and fourth-largest commercial banks.
Currently, Central Pacific and City Bank operate 23 and 22 branches, respectively, in Hawai‘i, on four islands. There is currently one CPB and one CB on Kaua‘i.
Phil Hayworth, Business Editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) and phayworth@pulitzer.net
