Stockholders’ Equity and Earnings Per Share

Stock Repurchase Program — On July 17, 2013, the Company’s Board authorized a stock repurchase program to buy back up to $100.0 million of the Company’s common stock. The Company has not repurchased any shares under this program thereafter, including during 2017 and 2016. Although this program has no stated expiration date, the Company does not intend to repurchase any shares pursuant to this program absent further action of the Company’s Board.

Warrant — The Company acquired MetroCorp Bancshares, Inc., (“MetroCorp”) on January 17, 2014. Prior to the acquisition, MetroCorp had an outstanding warrant to purchase 771,429 shares of its common stock. Upon the acquisition, the rights of the warrant holder were converted into the right to acquire 230,282 shares of East West’s common stock until January 16, 2019. The warrant has not been exercised as of December 31, 2017.

Quarterly Dividends — The Company declared quarterly cash dividends on its common stock of $0.20 per share for each quarter of 2017, which is consistent with the quarterly cash dividends declared on its common stock for each quarter of 2016 and 2015. Total cash dividends amounting to $117.0 million, $116.6 million and $116.2 million were declared to the Company’s common stockholders during the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Earnings Per Share — The following table presents the EPS calculations for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015. The Company applied the two-class method in the computation of basic and diluted EPS in the periods when the RSAs were outstanding. The RSAs were fully vested as of December 31, 2015. For additional information regarding the Company’s EPS calculation, see Note 1 — Summary of Significant Accounting Policies to the Consolidated Financial Statements. With the adoption of ASU 2016-09 during the first quarter of 2017, the impact of excess tax benefits and deficiencies is no longer included in the calculation of diluted EPS. As a result of applying ASU 2016-09 in 2017, the Company recorded income tax benefits of $4.8 million or $0.03 per common share for the year ended December 31, 2017 related to the vesting of the RSUs. See Note 1 — Summary of Significant Accounting Policies to the Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information.




($ and shares in thousands, except per share data)	Year Ended December 31,
($ and shares in thousands, except per share data)	2017		2016		2015
Basic
Net income	$	505,624	$	431,677	$	384,677
Less: earnings allocated to participating securities	—		—		(3		)
Net income allocated to common stockholders	$	505,624	$	431,677	$	384,674

Basic weighted-average number of shares outstanding	144,444		144,087		143,818
Basic EPS	$	3.50	$	3.00	$	2.67

Diluted
Net income allocated to common stockholders	$	505,624	$	431,677	$	384,680

Basic weighted-average number of shares outstanding	144,444		144,087		143,818
Diluted potential common shares ⁽¹⁾	1,469		1,085		694
Diluted weighted-average number of shares outstanding	145,913		145,172		144,512
Diluted EPS	$	3.47	$	2.97	$	2.66


(1)	Includes dilutive shares from RSUs and warrants for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015.

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, 14 thousand, 8 thousand and 16 thousand weighted-average anti-dilutive shares from RSUs, respectively, were excluded from the diluted EPS computation.