Thank you, John, and thank you all for joining us as we review the financial results of the fourth quarter of 2025 for Central Pacific Financial Corp. With me this morning are: Arnold Martines, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer; David Morimoto, Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer; Ralph Mesick, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer; Dayna Matsumoto, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Anna Hu, Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer.

We have prepared a supplemental slide presentation that provides additional details on our earnings release and is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.cpb.bank. During the course of today's call, management may make forward-looking statements.

While we believe these statements are based on reasonable assumptions, they involve risks that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. For a complete discussion of the risks related to our forward-looking statements, please refer to slide two of our presentation.

Now, I'll turn the call over to our Chairman, President, and CEO, Arnold Martines. Arnold?

Thank you, Jayrald, and aloha to everyone joining us today. I want to start by sharing that Central Pacific Bank was recently named to Newsweek's list of America's Best Regional Banks for 2026.

This recognition reflects the strength of our franchise and the trust our customers place in us every day. It's also a testament to our team's commitment to delivering exceptional service and building lasting relationships across the communities we serve, which is foundational to delivering long-term value to our shareholders.

Central Pacific closed the year with strong momentum in the fourth quarter and solid overall performance in 2025. The Q4 results were driven by disciplined execution across our core franchise.

Our profitability strengthened as we grew revenue and expanded our margins, while proactively managing expenses. As we enter 2026, Central Pacific Bank is ultra-focused on our core business, which includes a disciplined approach to organic growth, thoughtful diversification, and operational excellence.

We are well positioned to achieve consistent earnings growth, enhance shareholder returns, and strengthen our competitive advantage. Over the past three years, our total shareholder return was 77%, reflecting both solid share price appreciation and dividends.

Additionally, our core earnings per share increased 24% from the prior year, underscoring the strong operating momentum across our franchise. Hawaii's economy continues to be resilient despite macroeconomic uncertainty leading to lower visitor counts and softer job growth.

Offsetting such factors, Hawaii's key strength continues to come from strong construction activity at both the public and private level, as well as the military sector. Finally, in the fourth quarter, we continue to expand our international strategy through the signing of a strategic partnership with Korea Investment & Securities, one of South Korea's leading financial institutions.

This collaboration expands our international reach and creates new deposit opportunities as we offer our banking services to Korean customers seeking investment and business opportunities in Hawaii. With that said, I'll turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Arnold. In the fourth quarter, our teams were successful in growing core deposits through consistent calling efforts and relationship building.

Total core deposits grew by $78 million during the quarter, with meaningful gains in interest-bearing demand, savings, and money market balances. At the same time, average rate paid on total deposits declined to 94 basis points from 102 basis points.

Non-interest-bearing demand deposits remained healthy, continuing to represent a sizable 29% of total deposits. In the fourth quarter, our total loan portfolio declined by $78 million from the prior quarter.

During the quarter, we experienced several large construction and commercial mortgage loan payoffs, combined with a delay of certain new loan fundings to the first half of 2026. For the full 2025 full year, total loans declined by $44 million.

The full-year decline was driven by an aggregate $190 million decrease in residential mortgage, home equity, and consumer portfolios, which was partially offset by strong growth in commercial mortgage and construction. Average loan yields in the fourth quarter remained relatively stable at 4.99%, as the impact from Fed rate cuts was mitigated by back-book loan repricing.

As we enter 2026, our revenue growth strategy will be further enhanced with sales management, technology tools, and consistent discipline to drive results. We continue to build our loan pipeline with a focus on our core Hawaii market, supplemented by select mainland markets for diversification.

Our deposit growth will be driven by a focus on deepening relationships in Hawaii and strategic partnerships in Japan and Korea. For 2026, we are conservatively guiding to full-year net loan and deposit growth in the low single-digit percentage range.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Dayna.

Thanks, David. For the fourth quarter, we reported net income of $22.9 million, or 85 cents per diluted share, compared to $18.6 million, or 69 cents per diluted share in the prior quarter.

Our return on average assets was 1.25%, and return on average equity was 15.41%, underscoring continued profitability improvement in a dynamic environment. For the full 2025 year, net income was $77.5 million, or $2.86 per diluted share.

Excluding $1.5 million in one-time pretax office consolidation costs in the prior quarter, adjusted non-GAAP net income was $78.6 million, representing a meaningful 24% increase over 2024 non-GAAP net income of $63.4 million, which excludes non-core items. Fourth quarter net interest income rose by 1.3% from the prior quarter to $62.1 million, and net interest margin expanded 7 basis points to 3.56%.

We were successful in lowering our deposit costs by 8 basis points to 0.94%, while our total loan yields declined by only 2 basis points to 4.99%. There was approximately $250 million in loan portfolio run-off in the fourth quarter.

Our weighted average new loan yield this quarter was 6.8%, as compared to our weighted average portfolio yield of 4.99%. For the full year 2026, we are guiding to approximately 4% to 6% increase in net interest income.

We expect the NIM to expand, albeit at a slower pace than what we experienced in 2025. Our expectation for first quarter NIM is an expansion of approximately 2 to 5 basis points.

Total other operating income was $14.2 million, up $0.7 million from last quarter, primarily driven by a $0.9 million increase in bank-owned life insurance income. During the quarter, we recognized BOLI death benefit income of $1.4 million.

Going forward, we anticipate total other operating income to grow by 1% to 2% in 2026 over 2025 normalized. Total other operating expenses were $45.7 million, down $1.3 million from the previous quarter, which included one-time expense related to the consolidation of our operations center.

Our guidance for total other operating expense in 2026 is an increase of 2.5% to 3.5% from 2025 normalized. Our effective tax rate was 18.9% in the fourth quarter, and benefited from greater tax-exempt income, as well as additional tax credits.

Our normalized effective tax rate is in the 21% to 22% range. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately 530,000 shares at a total cost of $16.3 million.

For the full 2025 year, we repurchased 788,000 shares at a total cost of $23.3 million. The board declared a first quarter cash dividend of 29 cents per share, an increase of 3.6% from the prior quarter.

Additionally, our board approved a new share repurchase authorization for up to $55 million in 2026. The increase in the dividend and share repurchase authorization reflects our strong earnings, capital, and liquidity position and outlook.

Our current target capital ratios and priorities remain the same. We plan to continue to use capital for organic loan growth, dividends, and share repurchases to move towards our CET1 target of 11% to 12% to optimize our position.

We enter 2026 with a strong balance sheet, improved profitability metrics, and a clear focus on delivering sustainable value for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Ralph.

Thank you, Dayna. Our credit risk appetite continues to be informed by our strategic goals, emphasizing portfolio design, underwriting discipline, and risk-based pricing to achieve optimal returns, balance, and diversification.

In the fourth quarter, we maintained strong credit performance. Asset quality indicators were stable as credit costs stayed within an expected range, and the level of NPAs, past-due loans, and criticized assets remained near cycle lows.

Net charge-offs were $2.5 million, or 18 basis points annualized on average loans, with consumer book losses continuing to stabilize. Non-performing assets were $14.4 million, or 19 basis points of total assets.

Past-due loans over 90 days totaled $1.6 million, representing just 3 basis points of total loans. Criticized loans declined to 135 basis points of total loans, maintaining low levels.

Provision expense for the quarter was $2.4 million, including $1.7 million added to the allowance and $0.7 million to the reserve for unfunded commitments. The decrease in provision expense was primarily driven by a decline in loan balances, as well as improvements in our asset quality and macroeconomic forecast.

We hold a strong capital position to support the bank through the credit cycle and against unexpected outcomes. At quarter-end, our total risk-based capital was 14.8%.

Looking ahead, we'll continue to take a prudent approach to growing our loan portfolio to build durable earnings. Let me now turn the call back to Arnold.

Thank you, Ralph. In closing, our fourth quarter results reflect strategic execution and prudent risk management.

We delivered improved operating efficiency, margin expansion, and execution of strategic initiatives that position Central Pacific for sustainable growth. As we look ahead, we remain focused on creating an exceptional experience for our customers and long-term value for our shareholders.

I'm very proud of our team's accomplishments in 2025 and look forward to continuing the momentum in 2026. We are now happy to take your questions.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Good

morning, Matthew.

I just want to start on the delay in new loan fundings this quarter, somewhat expected, and it sounded like they're going to fund here in the first half, and I believe a couple of them are construction projects that require higher reserves. I'm just trying to get the timing down and what that means for your provisioning in the first half.

Hey, Matt. It's David.

You're right. We did have some delayed closings that pushed into the first half of this year.

I would say that the closings are probably a little more weighted to the second quarter versus the first quarter. You are correct that some of it is funded deals, some of it is construction, it's going to be a combination of the two, but probably a little more weighted to the second quarter versus the first quarter.

Okay. Great.

Then, Dayna, did you have the spot rate at the end of the year on deposits costs?

Sure, Matthew. Yes, our deposit spot rate at 12/31, it was 89 basis points.

Okay. Then you had a 30% deposit beta this quarter.

Seems like that's what you're trying to manage to. Is that fair, or has there been any change in deposit competition that might put that at risk?

Matthew, that's correct. The current cycle thus far, our interest-bearing deposit beta is about 30%, and with the outlook for two rate cuts this year, we anticipate that our cycle-to-date beta to remain roughly in the 25% to 30% range.

We do still have some room to lower our deposit costs to offset our floating-rate assets.

Great. Then last one for me, just on the buyback.

I know it's for 2026, but just wanted to confirm the plan is to complete that buyback this year?

Matthew. On the capital side, I want to start with just sharing that our strong earnings have built up our capital to a really solid level.

Given this, our board approved a larger share repurchase authorization for this year. That gives us flexibility.

You can expect that we will be active on the buyback as we return capital that can't be used to organically grow our business. The amount that we buy back each quarter, it's really going to be dynamic.

Yep, understood. Thank you.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question.

Maybe kicking it off with the loan growth. I know UHERO revised the Hawaiian report test up in the last release.

Wondering, incrementally as you look to the year ahead how you feel about the outlook for growth, specifically in Hawaii and with that low single-digit loan growth, the mix of that from the islands versus the mainland. Thank you.

Hey Kelly, it's David. You're right.

UHERO did upgrade their forecast, but it was an upgrade from a deeper downturn to a lighter downturn. It's moving in the right direction, but as far as Hawaii growth opportunities, we do have a nice pipeline of some growth opportunities.

They're primarily focused in the commercial area, it's C&I, commercial mortgage, and construction. As we've stated before, the growth between the Hawaii and mainland will fluctuate from quarter to quarter, but we are expecting 2026 to be a stronger growth year than 2025.

The balance between the Hawaii and mainland will be a function of risk-return opportunities as they arise. I did want to just point out one thing on 2025 loan growth.

While growth was muted in 2025 for the full year, I did want to point out that we did see strong growth in the areas that we were targeting, specifically construction and commercial mortgage. In the aggregate, those two portfolios grew by 10% year over year.

Then the overall decline in loan growth was a result in drawdowns in the residential mortgage, home equity, and consumer portfolios. That was by design.

We are trying to shift our portfolio mix more to commercial from consumer. Then another thing to note is the consumer drawdowns, that's somewhat within management's control.

We portfolioed only about a third of our resi mortgage production last year, and so that's a management decision that's within our control. I think the loan growth in 2026, the reason we're more cautiously optimistic on 2026 is that we're expecting stronger growth in the commercial portfolios and less drawdown on the consumer portfolios.

Got it. That's helpful.

Then putting together the pieces of your guide, it seems to suggest some positive operating leverage as we head into 2026. I know expenses has been a focus for you guys, and you've done a nice job managing them.

As you look ahead, if growth comes in weaker or there's more challenging margin expansion, is there additional room, or conversely, if growth picks up, are there areas that you might be able look to add to as you kind of think about the overall platform? Thank you.

Hi, Kelly. It's Dayna.

Definitely, we continue to be very focused on managing our expenses and maintaining strong expense discipline while continuing to invest for growth. We have some flexibility, if revenue is more or less, we can adjust.

Overall this year, we plan to continue to invest in technology to drive returns and efficiency. We do have a couple projects planned for sales management systems and tools, as well as some data platform enhancements.

Those investments will have some offsets with savings coming from our continued automation and process improvements, as well as optimizing our resources.

Great. Thanks so much for the color.

I'll step back.

Thanks, Kelly.

Thank you.

good morning, everybody.

Hi, David.

Maybe just following up kind of on the loan growth side, just with the focus on optimizing your loan portfolio towards more commercial, and some of the commentary on the delay in some fundings, would you maybe expect growth, again, this low single-digit growth, maybe a bit slower in the first part of the year, and would you expect continued declines, maybe the back half of the year accelerate as you work through that optimization? Just kind of curious how you think about the trajectory.

Hey David. I think what you described is the base case, right?

I think the first quarter is seasonally slower quarter for loan growth, and I think that's what we're expecting. We're hoping we can still get some net loan growth in the first quarter, but it'll probably start off slower, and then growth will accelerate as we roll through the year.

Okay. Then I'm just kind of curious how originations are trending and kind of how the pipeline's looking at this point.

If you could give a bit more color on what's driving the elevated payoffs and paydowns, whether it's asset sales or again, you talked about some strategic versus competition. Just kind of curious, again, the origination side and then some of the drivers behind payoffs and paydowns.

David. The loan pipeline remains consistent with past levels.

Fourth quarter originations were in the $300 million range. That's where we likely need to be to keep the portfolio relatively flat to slightly down.

We need to get originations higher than that to see net loan growth. Again, we're forecasting cautiously optimistic that we'll see low single-digit growth, and hopefully we can outperform that.

Then the second part of your question, David, was?

Just the drivers behind the payoffs and paydowns.

I'm sorry. I think I would chalk that up to just the construction portfolio has been on the smaller side.

When you have a small construction portfolio and you do encounter payoffs, it really impacts loan growth. What we're trying to do now is we're obviously focused on building the construction portfolio, getting a little more critical mass.

Then when you do that, the paydowns are somewhat offset by new construction draws. We've got to get to that critical mass on the construction portfolio side, and we are working towards it.

Last year, we did have a good year for construction originations that will be funding in the quarters ahead.

Okay. Then maybe just switching gears to the deposit side.

Just kind of curious how the competitive landscape is from your perspective on the islands. You guys have done a great job reducing deposit costs.

Just kind of curious, A, the competitive landscape, and then the core deposit growth that you saw was great to see. Curious how much of that is new clients versus gaining share with existing clients.

Just kind of curious what you're seeing on the deposit side.

David, it's been a little bit of a combination of both. Core deposit growth is basic banking, right?

Blocking and tackling. It's calling on new customer prospects, and it's deepening our relationships, what we refer to as customer primacy, improving primacy with our existing customers.

It's been a combination of both. I think we're optimistic on core deposit growth for 2026 as some of the initiatives that we put in place, being more disciplined on calling efforts, sales culture, and a focus on customer primacy, we think all of those will lead to stronger core deposit growth in 2026.

Okay. Is that also kind of what's driving your confidence in accelerating originations, too, that kind of cultural shift?

Yes. Yes, exactly.

It's just a stronger focus on deepening relationships with existing customers, which we believe there's good opportunity there. It's also customer prospecting, right?

We have about 13% of the banking market, and there's a lot of opportunity to grow that.

That's great. Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, David.

Thank you for joining our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. We appreciate your continued engagement and look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.