Continuing a trend among Connecticut community lenders, shareholders of Rockville Financial Inc. have approved the Vernon bank holding’s conversion from a mutual company to a fully public company.
The parent of Rockville Bank also announced plans to raise $171 million in a stock offering, a capital infusion that could spur acquisitions or other growth opportunities, bank officials said.
The company said it expects to complete this week the sale of 17,109,886 shares of common stock at $10 apiece. Bank officials said the offering was oversubscribed and that all orders for shares of common stock were filled in the first two categories of the subscription offering, with approximately 16,830,838 shares to be issued to depositors of Rockville Bank on the books as of June 30, 2009 and approximately 279,048 shares to be issued to Rockville Bank’s employee stock ownership plan.
Rockville Bank’s employee stock ownership plan intends to purchase approximately 405,347 additional shares of common stock, giving it ownership of 4 percent of the shares sold.
The transaction is scheduled to close on or about Thursday.
When Rockville Financial went public in 2005, a two-tier mutual holding company was created with two parents including Rockville Financial MHC, which holds about a 57 percent stake, and Rockville Financial, whose minority stake is publicly traded.
Under the planned reorganization Rockville Financial MHC will sell its share to the public and the cease existence.
Rockville Bank and its divisions will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Rockville Financial, which will be a state-chartered bank holding company.
Bank officials said the purpose of the reorganization is to provide ” additional capital to take advantage of potential growth and strategic opportunities, support our continued planned growth and successfully implement our business strategies.”
Rockville Bank’s normal business operations will continue without interruption during the process. There will be no change to Rockville Bank’s management as a result of the reorganization.
