A partition of the class of all Hermite–Biehler entire functions of finite order into subclasses ${\cal P}_\kappa$ is introduced. A given function $E(z)$ belongs to ${\cal P}_\kappa$ if and only if $-z^{-1}\log E(z)\in{\mc N}_\kappa$, where the class ${\mc N}_\kappa$ is a well studied family of meromorphic functions on the upper half plane, which originates from operator theoretic problems. It is also proved that the subclasses ${\cal P}_\kappa$ are stable under bounded type perturbation.