Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, we continued to make solid progress toward our business objectives. And I’m pleased to report a six consecutive quarter of profitability since the re-capitalization of our company.
Significant improvements continued to be made to our credit risk profile, resulting both in further reduction of our allowance for loan and lease losses, and in a positive impact to our earnings.
Although, there are several large non-recurring expense items in the quarter, which will be covered in more detail in our financial report to follow. Core earnings improved over the same period last year.
We also achieved solid growth on our balance sheet, both in loans and deposits, and our capital position remained strong. Overall, we are well on track with our business plan for 2012 throughout all areas of the bank. Our management and employees continue to focus on rebuilding our organization towards a full recovery.
Turning to our local economy, our visitor industry has been the driver of Hawaii's economy, as it begins to gain momentum. We’re encouraged by the increasing visitor industry activity and expanding airline capacity, which has occurred since the beginning of the year, particularly in the international market.
Year-over-year increases in total number of visitors to Hawaii returned to double-digit percentages in the three-month period from March to May, with gains of 12.9%, 11.3% and 12.2%, respectively. Visitor spending increased likewise in the same period by 18.9%, 26.7% and 17.5%.
The unemployment rate in Hawaii has increased slightly to 6.4% from 6.3% in a prior month, but was down from January of this year where it was at 6.5%. With the surfacing of new mixed-use construction projects in Kaka'ako and residential developments in West and Central Oahu, together with the $5 billion elevated rail system and the positive trends in our visitor industry, the unemployment rate is expected to decline for the remainder of the year.
A recent forecast by the State Department of Business and Economic Development for Tourism had the following year-over-year increases in 2012. 6.5% for visitor arrivals, 9% for visitor expenditures, 1.7% for real personal income, 1.5% for job growth and 2.2% for real GDP.
At this time, I would like to ask Denis Isono, our Chief Financial Officer to review the highlights of our second quarter financial performance. Denis?