Crazy Woman Creek in Wyoming Plans Charter Conversion, Tarp Exit

Crazy Woman Creek Bancorp (CRZY) in Buffalo, Wyo., is planning to convert to a state charter and repurchase preferred stock it issued to the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The $121 million-asset company said in a press release Tuesday that it will begin converting to a Wyoming-chartered bank and holding company on Jan. 29. The conversion should create "a substantial reduction in bank assessment costs along with increased flexibility across all bank operations," Paul Brunkhorst, the company's president and chief executive, said in the release.

Crazy Woman Creek also said that the Federal Reserve Board had approved a request to redeem 1,500 shares of preferred stock issued to the Treasury under the Tarp program. The company paid $1 million to redeem 1,000 shares earlier this month and plans to redeem 500 additional shares by mid-2014.

The stock repurchases will put Crazy Woman Creek on track to exit the program. The company originally issued 3,255 shares of preferred stock to the Treasury in February 2009. It will have 1,755 shares left to redeem.

"During the last fiscal year, we paid $168,000 in dividends on this obligation, Brunkhorst said.. "With the dividend rate scheduled to increase to 9%... the dividend expense on the preferred shares would have increased to $292,950 annually. When complete, the purchase of these 1,500 Series A Shares would reduce the future dividend expense to $157,950 on an annualized basis."

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