NEW YORK--Community-bank chain ConnectOne Bancorp Inc. (CNOB) led off the week's slate of initial public offerings with a gain, its shares rising more than 7% in early trading.
Shares opened at $30.50 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, up 8.9% from their $28 offer price, trading up 7.3% recently. The company sold 1.6 million shares within the expected $26-to-$29 range, valuing the IPO at $44.8 million.
ConnectOne is a lending chain founded in 2005 and based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Formerly known as North Jersey Community Bancorp Inc., it operates eight branches and holds a loan portfolio made up largely of commercial real-estate and business loans.
The bank has increased its total assets nearly fivefold since 2006, from $179.8 million to $883.8 million as of the end of September, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Total deposits have grown to $724.3 million from $158.9 million over that stretch.
Net income for the nine months ended in September was $6.1 million, up 28% from the same period a year earlier.
ConnectOne fared better in early trading than the most-recent pair of community-bank IPOs.
Miami's Capital Bank Financial Corp. (CBF) and Colorado's National Bank Holdings Corp. (NBHC) both notched meager first-day gains and now are trading below their September IPO prices.
ConnectOne said in its filings that it plans to use proceeds from the offering to support growth in its loan and investment portfolios and acquire other banks, among other purposes.
Stifel Financial Corp. (SF), KBW Inc. (KBW) and Sandler O'Neill + Partners LP served as ConnectOne's underwriters.
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