Synovus Prices Preferred Stock Offering

Synovus Financial (SNV) in Columbus, Ga., will raise roughly $125 million through a preferred stock offering.

The $27 billion-asset company plans to use the funds to help it repurchase securities it issued as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Synovus said expects to sell 5.2 million shares at $25 each in an offering expected to close on Thursday. The company announced last week that it would repurchase roughly $968 million of preferred shares issued to the Treasury Department in December 2008 by using a $680 million dividend from its Synovus Bank and by selling common and preferred stock. The common stock offering, set to close Wednesday, is expected to raise $185 million.

For several quarters, executives have said Synovus would repay Tarp by the end of the year when its dividend rate is set to spike. Synovus has the largest amount of outstanding Tarp funds, followed by Popular (BPOP) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which owes $935 million.

Synovus also reported last week that it earned $30.7 million in the second quarter, up almost 24% from a year earlier, as credit costs declined.