Beneficial in Pa. Completes Stock Sale in Mutual Conversion

Beneficial Mutual Bancorp has completed the stock-sale portion of its conversion to a wholly stock-owned company, raising between $468 million and $550 million.

The Philadelphia company finished selling shares to depositors and other groups last week, but it has decided not to sell shares to the general public, according to a news release Tuesday. Beneficial will disclose at a later date the exact amount that it raised in the offering.

The $4.4 billion-asset Beneficial announced Aug. 14 that it planned to convert from a mutual thrift to a stock-owned bank.

As part of the conversion process, Beneficial sold shares to its bank depositors, to its employee savings and stock ownership plan and to residents of four counties in eastern Pennsylvania and three counties in southern New Jersey. Those shares had been held by Beneficial's mutual holding company, which previously owned about 61% of the bank holding company.

Beneficial expects to complete the second-step conversion transaction by the end of the year, pending approval from the bank's depositors, the holding company's shareholders and the Federal Reserve Board.

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