Flagstar Bancorp in Troy, Mich., announced Monday that it is raising additional capital a month after an effort to raise funds from existing shareholders came up short.
The $14 billion-asset company announced a $250 million common stock offering in a prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It said the capital would be used for general purposes, including growth.
The common stock offering comes after Flagstar's effort to raise $500 million in a rights offering to existing shareholders.
The rights offering brought in $300.6 million, about 60% of its goal, including $300 million from MatlinPatterson Global Advisors LLC, a New York private-equity firm. It has invested $650 million, in all, in Flagstar during the past year and owns nearly a 90% stake. Flagstar did not return a phone call seeking comment, and MatlinPatterson declined to comment.
Though Flagstar missed its goal with the rights offering, the $300.6 million it raised helped bolster its cushion against $1.3 billion of nonperforming assets, which made up 8.44% of total assets reported at yearend.
Getting additional capital could position the company to begin growing again, analysts said.
"The capital from the rights offering stabilized them," said Eliot Stark, a managing director at Capital Insight Partners Inc., a Chicago investment banking firm. "If they are able to pull it off, this additional capital would allow them to start growing again."
Through the rights offering, the company was able to boost its total risk-based capital ratio from 11.68% to 15.28%, based on Dec. 31 figures, according to the company's SEC filings.
The company, which operates a nationwide mortgage business, disclosed this year that it was looking to diversify from its real estate focus.
Joseph P. Campanelli, who became Flagstar's president and chief executive in October, has said he plans to expand the company's focus to include small-business banking, cash management services, middle-market commercial lending and government banking.
In January the thrift entered into a supervisory agreement with the Office of Thrift Supervision that, among other things, calls for Flagstar to limit its growth, increase its core deposits and improve its asset quality.
Though the company's other shareholders largely decided against investing through the rights offering last month, Stark said Flagstar may be able to find interested investors in the open market.
"The existing shareholders have been diluted down to almost nothing, so I am not surprised few were willing to invest further. But this is going to attract a different class of investor," he predicted. "I don't know if they will succeed, but I could see some of the players investing that are after a high-risk investment that has the potential to pay an incredible return if their business plan pays off."
