October 21, 2004

BancWest Board Names Don McGrath C.E.O., Effective Jan. 1; Bonetto, Horner Named as Company Directors

(HONOLULU and SAN FRANCISCO, October 21, 2004) – The Board of Directors of BancWest Corporation today formalized a series of executive and board changes in preparation for the upcoming retirement of Walter A. Dods, Jr. as Chief Executive Officer of BancWest Corporation and its First Hawaiian Bank subsidiary.

BancWest directors made the following appointments, effective January 1, 2005:

  • Don J. McGrath, 56, will become President and Chief Executive Officer of BancWest.  McGrath will also become Chairman of the BancWest board’s Executive Committee. He will also remain President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of the West, a BancWest subsidiary, a position he has held since 1996.
  • Frank Bonetto and Donald G. Horner will become directors of BancWest.  Bonetto is Vice Chairman, Regional Banking Group at Bank of the West.  Horner is President and Chief Operating Officer of First Hawaiian Bank and will succeed Dods as Chief Executive Officer of First Hawaiian on January 1.
  • It was announced in April that Dods, 63, will retire as Chief Executive Officer of BancWest and First Hawaiian on December 31, ending a 36-year banking career. The board today formally appointed him as non-executive Chairman of BancWest, effective January 1.

McGrath, a native of Springfield, Illinois, 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 the Bank of the West organization in 1975.

He was named Vice President and Treasurer of Bank of the West in 1980, and 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.

On behalf of Bank of the West, he negotiated the 1998 merger with First Hawaiian Bank that created BancWest Corporation. He has been President of BancWest since 1998.

Bonetto, 54, joined Bank of the West in 1992 as head of the bank’s retail branch network.  He was previously a senior executive with Citibank and with American Savings Bank. He was named Vice Chairman in 2002 of the bank’s Regional Banking Group, which includes the retail branch system and business banking offices. 

Horner, 54, is a 26-year employee at First Hawaiian Bank who has been the bank’s President and Chief Operating Officer since 2003.  He previously served as President of its First Hawaiian Leasing and First Hawaiian Creditcorp subsidiaries and, from 1994-2003, was Vice Chairman and head of the Retail Banking Group. 

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About BancWest: BancWest Corporation (www.bancwestcorp.com) is a financial holding company with assets of $41.4 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 (297 branches in California, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington state and Idaho) and First Hawaiian Bank (61 branches in Hawaii, Guam and Saipan).