Enterprise Repurchases Preferred Stock from Treasury

Enterprise Financial Services (EFSC) in St. Louis, Mo., has repurchased the $35 million of preferred stock it had issued to the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
 
The $3.2 billion-asset company repurchased the shares at full face value, while also paying $400,000 in accrued and unpaid dividends. Enterprise had received its Tarp funds in December 2008.
 
Enterprise will record a $900,000, or roughly 3 cents a share, charge in the fourth quarter tied to the noncash acceleration of discount on the preferred stock. In October, the company reported a third-quarter profit of $7.3 million, up 40% from a year earlier, as commercial and industrial loans grew and nonperforming assets fell. The company also intends to repurchase the warrants it issued to the Treasury under Tarp.
 
"We agreed to participate in the Capital Purchase Program in late 2008 as an efficient means to supplement our capital strength and support continued growth during a time of economic uncertainty," Peter Benoist, Enterprise’s president and chief executive, said in a Wednesday press release. "Since then we've accomplished those objectives, growing our assets by almost 30% and completing four FDIC-assisted acquisitions. Now, with the economy showing signs of recovery and given our stronger capital and liquidity positions, we decided the time was right to repurchase the preferred stock in full."
          
Enterprise mostly focusing on serving the needs of privately held businesses and their executives and owners. Earlier this year, it had to restate its results from 2010 and most of 2011 after it uncovered accounting errors tied to the treatment of loans of a failed bank it had acquired.