Hawaiian Electric Industries

Hawaiian Electric Industries is the publicly traded holding company. Hawaiian Electric Company is its wholly owned utility subsidiary, providing electricity to 95% of Hawaii's population across Oahu, Maui, Hawaii Island, Lanai, and Molokai. Shelee Kimura serves as president and CEO of the utility, reporting up through the HEI structure.

American Savings Bank is HEI's separately capitalized banking subsidiary and Hawaii's third-largest financial institution. It provides earnings diversification outside the regulated utility, which can be upstreamed to the parent for grid investments or liability management. Ann Teranishi leads the bank as president and CEO.

HEI's utility subsidiary faces significant legal and financial exposure from the August 2023 Lahaina wildfire. Multiple lawsuits allege Hawaiian Electric's equipment ignited the fires. The resulting liability has pressured HEI's credit rating, driven a sharp stock decline, and accelerated the firm's asset divestiture program to shore up its balance sheet.

Hawaii law mandates 100% renewable electricity by 2045, the most aggressive state-level timeline in the United States. HEI's utility must fundamentally reengineer island grids built on imported oil — integrating distributed rooftop solar, utility-scale renewables, and battery storage while maintaining reliability on isolated island systems with no external grid connections.

The sales to Harbert Management Corporation and Fortistar reflect a strategic retreat from non-regulated generation. Post-wildfire, HEI is simplifying its corporate structure to focus capital on grid hardening, wildfire mitigation, and the regulated renewable transition — shedding merchant power assets that no longer fit the core mandate.

Admiral Thomas B. Fargo, former commander of US Pacific Command, chairs the board. CEO Scott Seu holds seats on the boards of the Edison Electric Institute and the Electric Power Research Institute, tying HEI's governance to mainland utility best-practice standards and giving the firm a voice in national energy research priorities.

HEI is a conventional public utility holding company, not a family office. It has no dynastic wealth origin. Its capital comes from public equity markets and ratepayer revenue, and it is regulated by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission. The firm occasionally appears in family-office databases only because of its holding-company structure and the American Savings Bank subsidiary.