Bank of the Orient to close its Manoa branch next week

Feb. 20--San Francisco-based Bank of the Orient will close its Manoa Marketplace branch on Tuesday after deciding not to renew its lease.

"While the bank is very focused and dedicated to the Hawaii market, when analyzing our costs and how to approach the Hawaii community in the most efficient and focused fashion, it felt that closing the branch, which had minimal growth over the past few years, was the best business decision," Michael Delucchi, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Bank of the Orient, said in an email. "While a decision like this is never easy, we feel that we have tried to make the transition to serve our valued Manoa branch customers from our Bishop (Street) location as easy and seamless as possible and we have had great success/feedback in our communications regarding the change with our customers."

Delucchi said the bank will relocate three of its four staff members at the Manoa branch to its remaining Hawaii branch at 765 Bishop St. After the closure, Bank of the Orient will have eight full-time employees. Bank of the Orient closed its other branch at 1016 Maunakea St. in September.

Bank of the Orient opened its first branch in Honolulu in 2000 when it bought the Bank of Honolulu in October of that year after it was seized and shut down by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Bank of Honolulu's founder and former chairman, Indonesian developer Sukamto Sia, who filed for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy in 1998, was sentenced in March 2002 to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty in September 2001 to two counts of bankruptcy fraud and one count of scheming to defraud the Bank of Honolulu.

In August 2000, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges that he knowingly hid nearly $8 million before declaring bankruptcy, and spent $757,249 in tax refunds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Nakamura said at the time that Sia took out $6 million in bogus loans, causing Bank of Honolulu to fail, and despite mounting debt went on gambling sprees and trips around the world using state refund money. Sia, who once was involved in selling land to the state for the $350 millionHawai'i Convention Center, was released from prison in September 2004 and deported to Singapore.

Central Pacific Bank said it hopes to open a new branch in Manoa Marketplace in the fourth quarter in the site now occupied by Bank of the Orient.

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