WASHINGTON – As part of its ongoing efforts to wind
down and recover its remaining Capital Purchase Program (CPP) investments under
the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the U.S. Department of the Treasury
today announced its intention to sell several preferred stock CPP
investments. Treasury intends to conduct auctions for all of its
preferred stock (the CPP Securities) in the following six institutions:
·
AB&T Financial
Corporation (Gastonia, NC);
·
Atlantic Bancshares,
Inc. (Bluffton, SC);
·
Centrue Financial
Corporation (Ottawa, IL);
·
Community First
Bancshares, Inc. (Harrison, AR);
·
Georgia Primary Bank
(Atlanta, GA);
·
Pacific Commerce Bank
(Los Angeles, CA).
Treasury previously
announced its intention to hold a series of
auctions for the CPP Securities of financial institutions that are part of the
overall strategy to wind down the remaining TARP bank investments. The
goal remains to protect taxpayer interests, promote financial stability, and
preserve the strength of our nation’s community banks. Treasury
will continue to use a combination of repayments, restructurings, and sales to
manage and recover those remaining investments.
TARP’s bank programs have already earned a significant
profit for taxpayers. To date, Treasury has recovered more than $273 billion
from TARP’s bank programs through repayments, dividends, interest, and other
income – compared to the $245 billion initially invested. Approximately
$2 billion of the repayments were refinanced under the Small Business Lending
Fund (SBLF). Congress created the SBLF outside of TARP and required Treasury to
let CPP institutions repay TARP funds by borrowing under that program.
Treasury has remaining outstanding CPP investments in 85 institutions. For more
details on Treasury’s lifetime cost estimates for TARP programs, please visit
Treasury’s Monthly 105(a) Report to Congress on TARP here.
Treasury expects to commence the auctions, which will be
offered principally to domestic qualified institutional buyers and certain
domestic institutional accredited investors, on or about January 27,
2014. The auctions are expected to close at 6:00 pm, New York City time,
on January 30, 2014. These offerings will be executed using a modified
Dutch auction methodology that establishes a market price by allowing investors
to submit bids at specified increments similar to the process Treasury used to
auction other CPP investments. The auction procedures will not include
the submission of “all or none” bids.
The
CPP Securities that will be sold in the auction have not been and will not be
registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Act), and may not
be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the benefit of, U.S.
persons absent registration under, or an applicable exemption from, the
registration requirements of the Act and applicable state securities law.
The CPP Securities will be offered only to (1) domestic “qualified institutional buyers”
as defined in Rule 144A under the Act, (2) certain domestic institutional “accredited
investors”
as defined in Rule 501(a) under the Act that have total assets of not less than
$25,000,000 and (3) in certain cases, certain directors and executive officers
of the respective issuers of the CPP Securities. This press release does
not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the CPP
Securities, and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any
jurisdiction in which, or to any persons to whom, such offering, solicitation
or sale would be unlawful.
###