City National Corporation, the parent company of City National Bank, has started a public offering of approximately 2.7m shares of its common stock.
City National has said that the proceeds from the sale of the offering will qualify as tangible common equity and tier one capital.
Subject to approval from regulators, the corporation intends to use proceeds from the offering toward the redemption of preferred stock and the repurchase of warrants sold to the US Treasury Department as part of the capital purchase program. The department purchased $400 million of these securities from City National on November 21, 2008.
Credit Suisse Securities USA and Merrill Lynch are book-running managers for this offering, and Sandler O’Neill + Partners is the co-manager. The underwriters will have a 30-day option to purchase as much as 15% of the common stock offering to cover over-allotments.
City National Bank is the wholly owned subsidiary of City National Corporation. It claims to be backed by $16.9 billion in total assets, and provides banking, investment and trust services through 63 offices, including 15 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada and New York City. The company and its eight majority-owned investment affiliates manage or administer nearly $46 billion in client investment assets, including $28.4 billion under direct management.
