U.S. Department of the Treasury

​WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced today that it priced a secondary public offering of 1,846,374 warrants to purchase common stock of Cathay General Bancorp (the “Company”) at $7.20 per warrant.  The aggregate net proceeds to Treasury from the offering are expected to be $13,107,778.30.  These proceeds provide an additional return to the American taxpayer from Treasury's investment in the Company beyond the dividend payments it received on the related preferred stock.

 

The closing is expected to occur on or about December 9, 2013, subject to customary closing conditions.  The offering was priced through a modified Dutch auction.  Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. is the sole book-running manager for this offering. 

The warrants were offered pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement that was filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”).  A preliminary prospectus supplement relating to the offering was filed with the SEC on December 3, 2013, and a final prospectus supplement will be filed by the Company with the SEC and will be available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in the registration statement and other documents the issuer has filed with the SEC for more complete information about the issuer and this offering.  You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov.  Alternatively, the issuer, the underwriter or any dealer participating in the offering will arrange to send you the base prospectus and prospectus supplement if you request them from Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Attn: Prospectus Group, 60 Wall Street, New York, New York 10005-2836, telephone: 1-800-503-4611, or by email at prospectus.CPDG@db.com.

This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

The auctions are part of the overall strategy that Treasury outlined for winding down its remaining TARP bank investments in a way that protects taxpayer interests, promotes financial stability, and preserves the strength of our nation’s community banks.  Treasury indicated that it intends to use a combination of repayments, restructurings, and sales to manage and recover those remaining investments.

Taxpayers have recovered $273 billion to date from TARP’s bank programs through repayments, dividends, interest, and other income – compared to the $245 billion initially invested.  Approximately $2 billion of the repayments were refinanced under the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF).  Congress created the SBLF outside of TARP and required Treasury to let CPP institutions repay TARP funds by borrowing under that program.  Treasury has remaining outstanding CPP investments in 89 institutions.  For more details on Treasury’s lifetime cost estimates for TARP programs, please visit Treasury’s Monthly 105(a) Report to Congress on TARP here.