(Updates share prices, includes details about direct sales)
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Marshall & Ilsley Corp. (MI) will sell up to $350 million in
stock directly into the market and said it could possibly use some
of the proceeds to repay its funding from the Troubled Asset Relief
Program.
Shares were recently down 6.2% at $8.30.
Many companies have been making secondary share offerings to
take advantage of heightened investor demand for shares, but
Wisconsin's largest bank will issue its shares directly into the
market to be bought through broker transactions at prevailing
market prices. Offerings are typically priced at a discount of as
much as 10%.
Company spokespeople weren't immediately available to say why
the direct-sale method is being used.
Following the U.S. government's stress test results earlier this
month, Bank of America Corp. (BAC) said it would issue as many as
1.25 billion shares by selling them straight into the market.
Regulators have told Bank of America to raise $33.9 billion in new
Tier 1 common equity.
Selling shares directly into the market allows banks to raise
capital quickly and discretely. But these direct sales also lack
the gravitas of large capital raises, which can amount to public
shows of strength. In large brokered shares issues, firms hire
investment banks to gauge investors' interest, set an issue price
of new shares and even over-sell the offering to demonstrate
investors' confidence.
Marshall & Ilsley has struggled with heavy exposure to some
of the most troubled housing markets and with its large exposures
to commercial construction loans. Late last month, both Standard
& Poor's Ratings Services and Fitch Ratings cut their credit
ratings on the company amid credit woes and loan losses.
The bank said it will use the proceeds from any stock sales for
general corporate purposes, and may give some of the proceeds to
its units for their corporate purposes. Marshall & Ilsley also
may use proceeds to buy back some of the preferred shares it issued
to the Treasury Department as part of TARP. The company got $1.7
billion in funding last year from the effort.
-By Kerry E. Grace, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5089;
kerry.grace@dowjones.com
-Marshall Eckblad contributed to this report.
