The underwriters of Assured Guaranty Ltd.'s common stock and equity unit offerings have exercised their over-allotment options in full, which will result in approximately $82.5 million in additional net proceeds from the offerings, the company said Monday.
Assured intends to use the additional proceeds for general corporate purposes. The offerings are now expected to raise a total of $659.5 million.
Underwriters have chosen to exercise their right to purchase an additional 5.775 million common shares, which will be sold at the same $11 per share as the original offering. In total, Assured will sell 44,275,000 shares for a total of $487 million.
The underwriters have also chosen to exercise their option to purchase an additional 450,000 equity units, which will be sold at the same $50 per-unit offering price as the original offering. In total, Assured will sell 3.45 million equity units for $172.5 million.
Merrill Lynch & Co. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are joint book-running managers on the common share offering. Merrill is the book-running manager for the equity unit offering.
Assured is using the original common share and equity unit offerings to finance its purchase of Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. Assured intends to use $364 million to finance the cash portion of the acquisition, which includes the purchase of about $3 million in shares from certain directors. It also plans to exercise its option to pay additional cash to reduce by up to half the 44.6 million share portion of acquisition at the rate of $8.10 per share.
Bond insurer Assured Guaranty Corp. has insured 815 new issues this year with a par value of $16.95 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Financial Security Assurance Inc. has backed 291 issues with a par value of $2.86 billion.
Shares of Assured Guaranty rose 1.01% yesterday to $11.04. The stock has risen from the 52-week low of $2.69 per share it reached on March 4.
