Mayor Caldwell Sells $72,000 Of Territorial Bank Stock
Honolulu’s mayor also serves as a board director for the parent company of the Honolulu-based bank.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell earns about $173,000 a year as mayor and as much as $200,000 more for his part-time position as a director of Territorial Bancorp Inc., the parent of Honolulu-based Territorial Savings Bank.
Last week, the mayor cashed in on some of the earnings from his moonlighting gig by selling some of his Territorial stock. Caldwell sold on Friday. That brought the mayor鈥檚 holdings in the bank down to 36,352 shares, worth about $1.16 million based on of $32.01.
That doesn鈥檛 count another Caldwell owns; those were valued at approximately $604,000, based on Tuesday鈥檚 share price. The last time Caldwell sold Territorial shares was in September 2015, when he raised about $117,600 by selling .
Caldwell鈥檚 role as a highly compensated director of the state鈥檚 fifth largest bank and Honolulu鈥檚 mayor has attracted criticism from political opponents.
In 2012, when Caldwell was running for his first term as mayor, the Honolulu Ethics Commission said Caldwell鈥檚 sitting on the bank board wouldn鈥檛 raise a conflict of interest if he became mayor. But that did not stop opponents such as Charles Djou from criticizing Caldwell when Djou was bidding to unseat Caldwell during the 2016 mayoral race.
Caldwell鈥檚 attorney, Lex Smith, said the mayor had gone to great lengths to specify his compensation from Territorial. Caldwell鈥檚 2015 financial disclosure lists Caldwell鈥檚 annual compensation from the bank merely as between $200,000 and $299,999.
The 2016 disclosure is more detailed. It explains that Caldwell got paid between $25,000 and $49,999 as his director鈥檚 fee. That鈥檚 consistent with Territorial鈥檚 , which lists Caldwell鈥檚 compensation as $47,890, including cash dividends on unvested stock.
The disclosure lists another sum, between $150,000 and $199,999, as stock that vested to Caldwell according to the terms of a stock grant given to Caldwell in 2010.
Firms often grant stock to executives as compensation, but spell out a process in which the full ownership is transferred to the employee 鈥 or vested 鈥 over time. In the disclosure, Caldwell explains that directors in 2010 were given a stock grant of 36,821 shares, which vested at a rate of 6,136 shares per year between 2011 and 2016. The compensation of between $150,000 and $199,999 on the disclosure represents the value of the 6,136 shares that vested in 2016.
Caldwell鈥檚 lawyer said it鈥檚 common for executives with demanding private sector jobs to sit on company boards. Caldwell鈥檚 doing the same does not mean he鈥檚 giving Honolulu short shrift.
鈥淚t does not take away from the mayor鈥檚 efforts as a full-time employee of the city,鈥 Smith said.
Mayor Caldwell’s 2016 Financial Disclosure:
