MBT offers stock, aims to raise $17.5M

Bank seeks to satisfy consent order

10/28/2013
BLADE STAFF

MONROE — MBT Financial Corp., parent company of Monroe Bank & Trust, hopes to raise as much as $17.5 million through an upcoming stock offering.

The bank — hit especially hard by foreclosures several years ago — continues to operate under a consent order from federal and state banking regulators that requires it to improve its financial condition. In documents filed Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank said it is in compliance with all provisions except for one that requires the bank to maintain specified capital ratios. Raising that capital would help put the bank on track to meet that provision.

Capital ratio measures a bank’s capital against its risk.

Under the offering outlined to the SEC, the bank would offer current stockholders the chance to purchase the same number of shares as they currently have. Any shares left over would be sold in a regular public offering.

The price and the number of shares to be sold has not yet been determined.

Should the bank reach the $17.5 million target, it would have about $16 million after expenses and sales commissions to inject into the bank as extra capital. Though that wouldn’t get the bank to the specified ratios, officials believe it would put them on track to be there by sometime in 2014.

“While not in compliance with the 9 percent Tier 1 capital required by the consent order, we believe together with our expected earnings during the balance of 2013 and during 2014, the bank is likely to achieve compliance with the capital requirements of the consent order during 2014,” the bank said in its filing.