More banks have already gone public in the first half of this year than all of 2013. And pressures like survival abound for others to follow their lead.
But a close look at the performances of those initial public offerings suggests that this strategy will not guarantee success for all banks, despite an urgent need and a few high fliers.
So far five banks have gone public this year compared with four in 2013. Overall, there is investor demand for good IPO stories, says Dory Wiley, president and chief executive of Commerce Street Holdings.
Industry observers and some bankers continue to argue that institutions need to get larger in order to gain efficiencies as regulatory costs rise and loan demand remains tepid.
Banks looking to gain scale either through acquisitions or organic growth see becoming a public company as a way to help achieve this.
The banks that have done an IPO over the last two years was less [a consequence] of their shareholders wanting liquidity and more [a matter of the bank] wanting a currency to be an active acquirer, says R. Lee Burrows Jr., the CEO at Banks Street Partners. Discussions for an acquisition usually break down because the currency being offered is illiquid.
To be sure, some IPO results have been better than others. The stock prices for the banks that went public in 2013 have soared the median price for the stock at those four banks is up more than 50%, according to data from KBW.
Yet the median trading value of the five banks that have gone public this year has remained roughly flat.
Overall bank stock prices had a strong year in 2013 when the market was still recovering from the financial crisis, says Rick Maples, co-head of investment banking at KBW.
That has changed this year as bank stocks have started to slide, and it is reflected in the stock prices for banks that recently went public.
The good news for the 2014 IPOs is that those banks were able to complete their offerings at higher multiples than the banks last year, Maples adds.
So while the appetite for bank IPOs remains, there are caveats.
Granted, investors are eager to stake a claim in community banks because the economic environment has improved, Maples says. Acquisition activity is also starting to pick up among these banks, which is enticing to investors, he adds.
Private-equity firms that invested more than five years ago may also be looking for an exit, driving some IPOs, says Curt Hidde, a partner at Barnes & Thornburg.
However, investors are looking for specific types of deals and there are still some doubts left over from the financial crisis in certain areas like Georgia, Wiley says.
Investors are drawn to banks that are in high-growth markets, such as California, or those that have developed a strong presence in a specific niche, such as Square 1 Financial, which went public in March and specializes in doing business with high-tech startups, Maples says.
Texas in particular is drawing a lot of attention after Independent Bank Group raised $96 million in an IPO last year and then went on to complete three acquisitions. Its stock is now trading roughly 80% higher than its initial pricing.
There are roughly 70 public banks in Texas with strong stock prices, giving them a currency to buy smaller institutions that are looking to sell after struggling with regulatory costs and lack of scale, Wiley says.
More than most states, Texas has a growth market, Maples says. It didnt suffer the downturn that other states went through, and you have a number of banks that were founded in the last 10 years that have reached a critical mass so they can go public.
Generally, a bank must have solid management, a location in a strong growth market and expansion plans in order to draw investor interest, Wiley says.
What is your competitive advantage? Wiley asks. How are you organically growing the bank? Do you have a competitive cost of funds? Can you grow without chasing credit? Investors are asking these hard questions so they arent just throwing money out there.
But while many community banks are hoping to go public because they want to grow and often acquire other banks, it will be predominantly larger acquisitive institutions, some with private-equity backing, that will be able to complete deals, Burrows says.
Indeed, having a publicly traded stock can be an advantage in negotiations over just a straight cash offer.
Bankwell Financial Group in New Canaan, Conn., recently raised almost $49 million after completing its IPO on May 14. The $812 million-asset company needed capital to support its organic growth and acquisition strategy, President and Chief Executive Peyton Patterson says.
Its loans and deposits have been growing at a 25% to 30% rate on an annual basis, and the company completed one acquisition last year and has another deal in the works.
The IPO gives Bankwell dry powder to fuel that growth, Patterson says. Potential investors will dig deep into your core earnings and identify how strong your net interest margin is and how the bank is positioning itself for rising rates. That will be critical.
There could also be some pent-up demand for banks looking to do an IPO that put off the offering until the economy improved and the financial crisis passed, Hidde says. ServisFirst Bancshares in Birmingham, Ala., which went public May 13 waited to do its IPO until conditions improved, says President and CEO Tom Broughton.
The $3.5 billion-asset ServisFirst plans to use the capital for organic growth, though the company might consider an acquisition if it was the right fit.
I didnt want to sell stock at a low price during the recession, he adds. We really have felt smooth sailing for the last few years. Its been difficult to predict.
Thats true enough. ServisFirsts shares opened at $91 and fell to around $80 within a week and then quickly rebounded to about $86.
However, its stock price was about 223% of book value, which is still a nice premium, Burrows says.
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