Banking, finance, and taxes

Mixed Analyst Picture for Butterfield After Quiet Period

Jon C. Ogg

Published: October 11, 2016 1:21 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:32 am

Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd. (NYSE: NTB) has seen its quiet period come to an end. The overall analyst coverage coming into the first initiations looks perhaps more mixed than some of the bulls might have been hoping for. Some 10,638,298 ordinary shares were priced at $23.50 per share on September 15.

24/7 Wall St. wanted to see how the analyst coverage was impacting the stock. One issue to consider is that Butterfield sold 5,957,447 of the common shares (roughly $127 million), insiders and holders sold 4,680,851 common shares (roughly $110 million). It is far from a rule of course, but many investors prefer to see all of the IPO proceeds go for the benefit of a company rather than insiders and/or venture backers also taking money out. Again, that is not a rule.

Butterfield shares opened at $25.10 on the September 16 IPO, traded as high as 25.38 and closed at $24.75. Shares have traded higher since, but they did initially list a little lower in the days immediately after the IPO.

The shares sold by Butterfield was earmarked for the typical wording in an IPO — for general corporate purposes. The book-running managers were listed as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Sandler O’Neill. Co-managers were listed as Keefe Bruyette & Woods, Raymond James, and Wells Fargo.

One word of caution came from Goldman Sachs, and they were listed as one of the top underwriters. The bulge-bracket firm  started NTB with a Neutral rating. They also set an initial $27.00 price target in their coverage.

Other key ratings were seen as follows:

• Keefe Bruyette & Woods started coverage with an Outperform rating and set a $29.00 price target.
• Raymond James started coverage with an Outperform rating and set a $28.00 price target.
• Sandler O’Neill started coverage with a Buy rating and set a $28.00 price target.

Butterfield counts itself as Bermuda’s first and largest independent bank, and is also said to be a specialist provider of international financial services.

Butterfield shares were last seen trading down 0.5% at $25.48. Price targets ranging from $27.00 to $29.00 initially just doesn’t seen to be enough to draw in new post-IPO buyers.