Walter Dods to Serve as Board Member for the Telephone Company

Honolulu, HI - Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group announced today that Walter A. Dods, Jr., 62, who will retire as Chief Executive Officer of BancWest Corporation and First Hawaiian Bank at the end of this year but continue to serve as Chairman of both companies, will serve as a board member of the telephone company in Hawaii that Carlyle agreed to acquire from Verizon on May 21, 2004. The Federal Communications Commission approved the purchase in August, and the Department of Justice and the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission are currently reviewing the transaction.

William E. Kennard, Carlyle Managing Director, said, “We are especially pleased that Walter Dods has agreed to join the Board of Directors. Walter is a pillar of the community, bringing business savvy, commitment to community service and tremendous local insight to our new company. By combining Walter’s knowledge of the community with Carlyle’s deep telecommunications experience we will forge a significant alliance that will serve customers and employees quite well.”

“Carlyle has big plans for the phone company in the Islands, and I’m looking forward to serving on the board of a company that in many ways will be reinvigorating the telecommunications industry for our state,” said Dods, who will be an investor in the New Company alongside Carlyle. “Carlyle has a proven track record, approaching each acquisition prudently and with the intent of making companies even better to create a win-win situation for everyone involved – management and union employees, customers, investors and the community.”

Walter Dods, a leader of the banking industry in Hawaii and nationally, joined First Hawaiian Bank in 1968. He worked his way through management in every part of the bank – marketing, consumer loans, auto loans, wholesale lending, retail banking – and 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 Chief Executive Officer of the bank and its holding company since 1989. BancWest Corporation, a subsidiary of BNP Paribas, is a financial holding company whose main subsidiaries are Bank of the West and First Hawaiian Bank.

When Dods 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 this year has $38.9 billion in assets and more than 350 branches in California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Guam and Saipan.

In 1998, Dods 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.

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