The Bank of Montreal has chosen to convert is preferred stock holdings in Hartford asset manager Virtus Investments Inc. into 378,446 shares of common stock.
The previously announced move by Virtus to call 9,783 shares of convertible preferred in the hands of Bank of Montreal’s Harris Bankcorp. unit will reduce the shares of preferred outstanding by about $9.8 million.
It will also trim about $800,000 from Virtus’ annual dividend expense.
Bank of Montreal’s other option was to take the value of the preferred shares and undeclared dividends in cash.
At 11 a.m., Virtus was up 13 cents to $26.71.
