Central Pacific Bank parent plans $20M stock offering

Central Pacific Financial Corp., parent company of Central Pacific Bank, today announced that it will commence on April 11, 2011, a $20 million common stock rights offering. Shareholders who owned common shares of the company at the close of business on February 17, 2011 will receive at no charge a transferable right to purchase newly-issued common shares in the offering.

Under the normal practices of the New York Stock Exchange, shares of common stock traded during the period from Feb. 15, 2011 through February 25, 2011 were traded with the rights, and common stock traded as of the start of the open of market on Feb. 28 were traded without the rights.

The company will issue up to 2,000,000 common shares in the offering at a price of $10 per share, the same price paid by the private investors in the company’s $325 million private placement. Each right will entitle eligible shareholders to purchase 1.3081 newly-issued shares for each common share owned on the record date. To the extent that some eligible shareholders do not participate in the offering, or choose to purchase less than their full allocation of shares, the remaining shares will be available for purchase by other eligible shareholders pursuant to an over-subscription privilege.

The rights will become tradable on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CPF-RT” on April 12, 2011, until 4:00 p.m., Eastern time, on May 5, 2011. The offering will expire at 5:00 p.m., Eastern time on May 6, 2011.

The Rights Offering will be made only by means of the final prospectus related to the offering, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A separate registration statement was also filed with the SEC registering approximately 18.5 million of the shares issued in the company’s recapitalization to private investors and the United States Department of the Treasury. These shares may be resold once the registration statement is declared effective by the SEC, which we expect to occur later this week.

About Central Pacific Financial Corp.

Central Pacific Financial Corp. is a Hawaii-based bank holding company with $3.9 billion in assets. Central Pacific Bank, its primary subsidiary, operates 34 branches, over 120 ATMs, and a residential mortgage subsidiary in the state of Hawaii. For additional information, please visit the company’s website.