With five completed acquisitions and one pending, North American Financial Holdings Inc. is set to go public.
The bank holding company, which was formed in late 2009 by R. Eugene Taylor, former vice chairman of Bank of America, filed its initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. It is seeking to raise as much as $300 million that it says it would use to acquire banks through traditional transactions and those brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the Southeast. The company, headquartered in Charlotte, has not yet set a date for the offering.
The company raised $900 million at its formation and made its first acquisitions in July 2010 when it bought three failed banks — First National Bank of the South in Spartanburg, S.C.; Metro Bank of Dade County in Miami; and Turnberry Bank in Aventura, Fla.
It also has acquired a 94% stake in TIB Financial Corp. in Naples, Fla., and an 83% stake in Capital Bank Corp. in Raleigh, N.C. Also, in May the company announced it plans to take a 90% stake in Green Bankshares in Greenville, Tenn. That deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
After the addition of the $2.4 billion-asset Green Bankshares, NAFH would control $7.2 billion of assets and nearly 150 branches throughout the Southeast. The company said in its IPO filing that it eventually plans to merge all the banks under the Capital Bank name and all of the holding companies into NAFH prior to the completion of the offering.
NAFH's planned offering follows the Jan. 28 IPO of BankUnited Inc., which is led by former North Fork Bancorp. Chief Executive John Kanas. The $11.2 billion-asset company, which acquired the failed BankUnited in May 2009 through the help of a consortium of private-equity backers, raised $783 million in its offering.
