Hanmi Financial Corporation Resumes Stock Repurchase Plan

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LOS ANGELES, Feb. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hanmi Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: HAFC) (the “Company”), the holding company for Hanmi Bank, today announced that it will resume purchases of its common stock pursuant to its current Stock Repurchase Plan (the “Plan”). Under the Plan, originally announced on January 24, 2019, the Board of Directors authorized the Company to repurchase up to 5% of its outstanding shares or approximately 1.5 million shares of its common stock. During the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020 the Company repurchased approximately 510,400 shares of common stock. On April 30, 2020, the Company announced the suspension of the Plan due to the uncertainty arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. As of February 12, 2021, approximately 989,600 shares of the Company’s common stock remain available for repurchase under the current Plan.

“We believe that our recent financial results, stable portfolio performance and current and expected capital levels allow us to resume opportunistically repurchasing shares at attractive prices to support our stock while continuing to prudently manage our capital position,” stated Bonnie Lee, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Out of an abundance of caution, we previously paused our repurchase activity in early 2020 in light of the uncertainties caused by the pandemic.”

Repurchases under the Plan may be carried out in open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions and pursuant to any trading plan that might be adopted in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

Repurchases will be made at management’s discretion at prices management considers to be attractive and in the best interests of both the Company and its stockholders, subject to the availability of stock, general market conditions, the trading price of the stock, alternative uses for capital, and the Company’s financial performance.

The Plan may be suspended, terminated or modified at any time for any reason, including market conditions, the cost of repurchasing shares, the availability of alternative investment opportunities, liquidity, and other factors deemed appropriate. These factors may also affect the timing and amount of share repurchases. The Plan does not obligate the Company to purchase any particular number of shares.

About Hanmi Financial Corporation
Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Hanmi Financial Corporation owns Hanmi Bank, which serves multi-ethnic communities through its network of 35 full-service branches and 9 loan production offices in California, Texas, Illinois, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Washington and Georgia. Hanmi Bank specializes in real estate, commercial, SBA and trade finance lending to small and middle market businesses. Additional information is available at www.hanmi.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are included in accordance with the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact are “forward–looking statements” for purposes of federal and state securities laws, including, but not limited to, statements about anticipated future operating and financial performance, financial position and liquidity, business strategies, regulatory and competitive outlook, investment and expenditure plans, capital and financing needs and availability, plans and objectives of management for future operations, developments regarding our capital and strategic plans, and other similar forecasts and statements of expectation and statements of assumption underlying any of the foregoing. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” or “continue,” or the negative of such terms and other comparable terminology. Although we believe that our forward-looking statements to be reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These factors include the following:

  • a failure to maintain adequate levels of capital and liquidity to support our operations;
  • the effect of potential future supervisory action against us or Hanmi Bank;
  • our ability to remediate any material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting;
  • general economic and business conditions internationally, nationally and in those areas in which we operate;
  • volatility and deterioration in the credit and equity markets;
  • changes in consumer spending, borrowing and savings habits;
  • availability of capital from private and government sources;
  • demographic changes;
  • competition for loans and deposits and failure to attract or retain loans and deposits;
  • fluctuations in interest rates and a decline in the level of our interest rate spread;
  • risks of natural disasters;
  • a failure in or breach of our operational or security systems or infrastructure, including cyberattacks;
  • the failure to maintain current technologies;
  • our inability to successfully implement future information technology enhancements;
  • difficult business and economic conditions that can adversely affect our industry and business, including competition and lack of soundness of other financial institutions, fraudulent activity and negative publicity;
  • risks associated with Small Business Administration loans;
  • failure to attract or retain key employees;
  • our ability to access cost-effective funding;
  • fluctuations in real estate values;
  • changes in accounting policies and practices;
  • the imposition of tariffs or other domestic or international governmental policies impacting the value of the products of our borrowers;
  • changes in governmental regulation, including, but not limited to, any increase in FDIC insurance premiums;
  • the ability of Hanmi Bank to make distributions to Hanmi Financial Corporation, which is restricted by certain factors, including Hanmi Bank’s retained earnings, net income, prior distributions made, and certain other financial tests;
  • the adequacy of our allowance for credit losses;
  • our credit quality and the effect of credit quality on our provision for loan losses and allowance for credit losses;
  • changes in the financial performance and/or condition of our borrowers and the ability of our borrowers to perform under the terms of their loans and other terms of credit agreements;
  • our ability to control expenses;
  • changes in securities markets; and
  • risks as it relates to cyber security against our information technology and those of our third-party providers and vendors.

In addition, we set forth certain risks in our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K that we will file hereafter, which could cause actual results to differ from those projected. We undertake no obligation to update such forward-looking statements except as required by law.

Contact:
Romolo (Ron) Santarosa
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
213-427-5636

Lasse Glassen
Investor Relations
Addo Investor Relations
310-829-5400


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Source: Hanmi Bank

Released February 16, 2021