WALTER A. DODS, JR. TO RETIRE AS C.E.O. AT YEAR-END, BUT REMAIN AS CHAIRMAN OF BANCWEST, FIRST HAWAIIAN BANK
Don J. McGrath Will Become BancWest’s CEO; Donald G. Horner Will Step Up to CEO of First Hawaiian
(Honolulu, Hawaii, April 15, 2004) -- Walter A. Dods, Jr., 62, will retire as Chief Executive Officer of BancWest Corporation and First Hawaiian Bank at the end of this year, but will continue to serve as Chairman of both companies. BancWest Corporation, a subsidiary of BNP Paribas, is a financial holding company whose main subsidiaries are Bank of the West and First Hawaiian Bank.
Following Dods’ year-end retirement:
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Don J. McGrath, 55, President and Chief Operating Officer of BancWest, will continue as President and also succeed Dods as Chief Executive Officer. McGrath will remain President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of the West, a position he has held since 1996.
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First Hawaiian Bank President Donald G. Horner, a 25-year employee at First Hawaiian Bank, will continue as President of First Hawaiian and succeed Dods as the bank’s Chief Executive Officer.
We are delighted that Walter Dods has agreed to stay on as Chairman of BancWest and First Hawaiian Bank. His leadership, advice and wisdom have been vital in planning BNP Paribas’ growth in the Western United States,” said Baudouin Prot, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas. “We are also fortunate to have Don McGrath, a talented and experienced executive, fully prepared to step right in as CEO as BancWest continues to grow.
McGrath has been an executive with Bank of the West since 1980. On behalf of the bank, he negotiated the 1998 merger with First Hawaiian, Inc. which created today's BancWest Corporation.
Don has been involved in strategy, planning and management of BancWest from the beginning. Nobody is better equipped to lead our company into the future,” Dods said.
A native of Springfield, Illinois, McGrath received a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Illinois in 1970 and an M.B.A., with honors, in Finance from Boston University in 1973. After experience with Illinois National Bank in marketing and investment positions, McGrath joined Bank of the West's then parent company, Banque Nationale de Paris (now called BNP Paribas), as Treasurer of its Western U.S. operations in 1975.
He was named Vice President and Treasurer of Bank of the West in 1980, then served in various positions including Chief Financial Officer before being named as a Director and Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer in 1988. He was elected President of the bank in 1991, and became Chief Executive Officer in 1996.
McGrath is a public member of the Pacific Stock Exchange Board of Governors and a member of its Compensation Committee. He is active in community and industry affairs and serves on the boards of the Nature Conservancy of California, Commonwealth Club of California, Resources Legacy Fund, and Operation HOPE, Inc. As a Dominican University Trustee, he serves as Co-Chair of the Finance Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board. He is a past Trustee of the Alameda County Retirement Fund and has served on the Board of the California Bankers’ Association.
Horner, 53, began his banking career as a credit analyst with First Hawaiian Bank in 1978 and steadily moved up the ranks to positions of increasing responsibility, including President of its First Hawaiian Leasing and First Hawaiian Creditcorp subsidiaries.
In 1994, he was named head of the Retail Banking Group, responsible for all of First Hawaiian’s consumer and business banking in Hawaii, Guam and Saipan including the 61-branch network, business banking centers and private banking. He was named President in January 2003.
"He’s an outstanding leader," Dods said of Horner. He has been a success in every area of our bank. Don is more prepared to take over as CEO than anyone in our bank’s history.
Dods, a leader of the banking industry in Hawaii and nationally, joined First Hawaiian Bank in 1968. Over the years, he worked his way through management in every part of the bank – marketing, consumer loans, auto loans, wholesale lending, retail banking. He was named President in 1984 at the age of 43, one of the youngest presidents in the nation for an institution its size. He has been Chairman and CEO of the bank and its holding company since 1989.
When he took over, First Hawaiian was a Hawaii-based company that earned $57 million a year and had assets of $5 billion. BancWest had earnings of $436 million in 2003 and now has $38.9 billion in assets and more than 350 branches in California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Guam and Saipan. Completion of the upcoming acquisition of Community First Bankshares will push BancWest’s asset size to nearly $45 billion.
With the Hawaii economy stuck in the doldrums during the 1990s, Dods took First Hawaiian to the Mainland. In 1996, the company acquired branches in Oregon, Washington and Idaho and formed a new Pacific One Bank subsidiary.
In 1998, he created today’s BancWest Corporation by negotiating a merger with Bank of the West in California, which had been a subsidiary of France’s Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP). Pacific One Bank merged into Bank of the West, which has since expanded into Nevada and New Mexico as well.
In 2001, the French bank, now known as BNP Paribas, bought out the rest of BancWest’s stock for $2.5 billion and BancWest became a wholly owned subsidiary of BNP Paribas. In 2002, BancWest Corporation and BNP Paribas acquired United California Bank – the largest Los Angeles-based institution – for $2.4 billion.
Last month, BancWest agreed to acquire $5.5-billion asset Community First Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ: CFBX), whose Community First National Bank operates 155 branches in 12 states in the Southwest, Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and east to the Great Lakes. That transaction requires approval from Community First shareholders and federal and state banking regulators. Once all regulatory approvals have been received, the merger is expected to close during the third quarter of 2004, at which time Community First branches will become part of Bank of the West.
Dods was 1996-97 president of the American Bankers Association. He also served a two-year term (1998-2000) on the 12-member Federal Advisory Council to Chairman Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, advising the Fed on issues related to the financial industry. He is the Hawaii chairman of the Japan-Hawaii Economic Council.
Among the corporate boards Dods serves on are Alexander & Baldwin, Inc., Matson Navigation Company, Inc., First Insurance Company of Hawaii, Ltd., Grace Pacific Corporation and Pacific Guardian Life Insurance Co., Ltd.
Dods has spearheaded major fundraising efforts for Hawaii nonprofit organizations and has been a director of numerous charities including the Coalition for a Drug-Free Hawaii; The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii; East-West Center Foundation; Hawaii Visitors Bureau; Hawaii Employers Council and Aloha Council - Boy Scouts of America. He has also served as chairman of the Hawaii Visitors Bureau; Blood Bank of Hawaii; and Honolulu Board of Water Supply.
About BancWest: BancWest Corporation (www.bancwestcorp.com) is a financial holding company with assets of $38.9 billion. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Paris-based BNP Paribas. BancWest is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, with an administrative headquarters in San Francisco, California. Its principal subsidiaries are Bank of the West (295 branches in California, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington state and Idaho) and First Hawaiian Bank (61 branches in Hawaii, Guam and Saipan).
This release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding anticipated timing of the Community First transaction. Such statements reflect management’s best judgment as of this date, but they involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those presented. Factors that could cause such differences include, without limitation, (1) the possibility that regulatory approvals may be delayed or denied or that burdensome conditions may be imposed in connection with such approvals; (2) the possibility of customer or employee attrition following this transaction; (3) failure to fully realize expected cost savings from the transaction; (4) lower than expected revenues following the transaction; (5) problems or delays in bringing together the two companies; (6) the possibility of adverse changes in global, national or local economic or monetary conditions, (7) competition and change in the financial services business, and (8) other factors described in our recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those factors or others could result, for example, in delay or termination of the transaction discussed above. Readers should carefully consider those risks and uncertainties in reading this release. Except as otherwise required by law, BancWest and Community First Bankshares disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements included herein to reflect future events or developments.
In connection with the proposed transaction, Community First will be filing proxy statements and other materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors are urged to read the proxy statement and these materials when they are available because they contain important information.
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