NewAlliance Bank, awaiting its $1.5 billion sale to a New York acquirer, is being dropped from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.’s mortgage finance index, The Associated Press reports.
Keefe Bruyette said it will add bond insurer Radian Group Inc. to the KBW Mortgage Finance Index, beginning Monday.
The Philadelphia company will replace NewAlliance Bancshares Inc., a Connecticut bank that said last week it will sell itself to Buffalo, N.Y.-based First Niagara Financial Group Inc. for $1.15 billion.
KBW also is changing its banking index.
As of the market opening Monday, the boutique firm will increase the number of shares of Citigroup Inc. in its KBW Bank Index, to reflect shares of the bank sold by the U.S. Treasury.
The government has been increasing the number of shares of Citigroup common stock available by selling some that it acquired as part of the Capital Purchase Program, one of the elements of the bank bailouts in late 2008. As of late May, Treasury held 7.7 billion shares of the New York-based bank.
