Bank of Ozarks offers 6.6 million shares
Bank of the Ozarks will sell 6.6 million shares of its stock in a public offering, the Little Rock-based bank said Wednesday after the market closed.
Bank of the Ozarks said it will use the money raised from the offering for future acquisitions, to support its loan growth and for general purposes.
Matt Olney, a banking analyst with Stephens Inc., said in a research brief concerning the bank, "Based on its current loan growth guidance, we did not previously anticipate a need for external capital until 2018."
At Wednesday's close of $47.03 per share, the offering would raise about $310 million.
J.P. Morgan is the sole manager of the stock offering, the bank said.
-- David Smith
Saudi wealth fund aims high with 2 deals
Saudi Arabia plans to expand its sovereign wealth fund into the world's largest. The kingdom took a huge step toward that goal on Saturday when it signed billions of dollars of deals with Blackstone Group and SoftBank Group Corp.
The Public Investment Fund is at the center of Saudi Arabia's efforts to diversify revenue away from oil under an economic transformation plan known as Vision 2030. The fund could eventually control more than $2 trillion, according to Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The sale of a less than 5 percent stake in oil giant Aramco to the public will provide funds for investment.
"We want to be an investment powerhouse," Public Investment Fund managing director Yasir Alrumayyan said Saturday during an event that gathered top Saudi officials and American corporate titans, including JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and Citigroup CEO Mike Corbat, in Riyadh. "Most of the investments we announced and will announce soon are international, but they will be in parallel with our investments in Saudi."
The Public Investment Fund's deal making has quickened this year as it seeks to increase the proportion of foreign holdings to 50 percent from 5 percent, excluding Aramco.
The fund's biggest investments so far include the Blackstone Infrastructure Fund. The Public Investment Fund agreed to commit $20 billion to an infrastructure investment fund with Blackstone, the world's biggest private-equity manager.
-- Bloomberg News
Car hot, Aston Martin swings to 1Q profit
Aston Martin Holdings Ltd. swung to a profit in the first quarter as the British luxury-auto maker benefits from cost cuts and demand for its new DB11 sports car.
Pretax earnings were $7.6 million in the first quarter after a $38.4 million loss a year earlier, the Gaydon, England-based manufacturer said. It was the first profit in that period since 2007, as an aggressive restructuring was taking hold and a revamp of the DB flagship model propelled a doubling of deliveries.
"Management has been myopically focused on the operational delivery of our plans, and we haven't been distracted by anything else," Chief Financial Officer Mark Wilson said in an interview.
Aston Martin, whose opulent sports cars were popularized by James Bond films, has been cutting jobs and and expanding its range to reverse years of losses. In a bid to follow a trail blazed by rival Ferrari NV, the U.K. manufacturer may consider a public stock offering on the London Stock Exchange as early as next year, people familiar with the matter said last week.
While there are no plans for a share sale, "I get banks coming to me all the time pitching great ideas about IPOs," Wilson said.
-- Bloomberg News
Consultant charged in U.S. secrets' use
NEW YORK -- A Washington consultant is among five people charged in an insider-trading case stemming from secrets leaked from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Charges including conspiracy and securities fraud against consultant David Blaszczak are in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in federal court in New York City.
Also charged is former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services employee Christopher Worrall, who worked in the director's office as a special assistant when the leaks occurred.
Their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The indictment said Blaszczak and others used "deceit, craft, trickery and dishonest means" to defraud the United States from 2011 through 2013 by obtaining confidential information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
It says Blaszczak then disclosed the information to others.
--The Associated Press
Bay Area plummets in home-price gauge
San Francisco, which in recent years had the biggest home-price gain in the U.S., was the country's weakest market in the first quarter, with values falling for the first time since 2011.
Single-family home prices in the region that includes San Francisco and San Mateo counties dropped 2.5 percent from a year earlier, the worst performance among the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, according to an index released Wednesday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Grand Rapids, Mich., a relatively affordable area where prices jumped 13.7 percent, had the biggest gain.
San Francisco is cooling after a booming technology industry, with its big salaries, fueled soaring values in recent years and made real estate unaffordable for most buyers in the market. Home prices rose 10 percent in last year's first quarter and 15 percent in the first part of 2015, when its gains led the nation, agency data show. The area's median home price in the first quarter was $1.1 million, making it the most expensive of the 100 largest metros, according to real estate website Trulia.
"We're seeing signs that the housing market is slowing down," Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist for Trulia, a unit of Zillow Group Inc., said in a telephone interview. "Homebuyers in the Bay Area have just been stymied by affordability fatigue."
The Federal Housing Finance Agency index may leave out a large proportion of buyers in the region. It only measures purchases financed with conforming loans, which in the San Francisco Bay Area are capped at $636,150, well below the median price of more than $1 million.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 05/25/2017