Centra Financial Holdings Inc. of Morgantown, W.Va., has become the fifth banking company to return its government capital.
The $1.2 billion-asset Centra said Friday that it had redeemed the $15 million of preferred stock it issued Jan. 16 to the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Centra also paid the department a dividend of nearly $100,000.
The company had said last month that it planned to repay the money and would remain well capitalized after doing so.
"When we decided to accept funds under this program, we believed we were the type of healthy bank that could employ the funds in the manner consistent with the goals initially set out by the Congress and the Treasury," Douglas J. Leech, Centra's chairman and chief executive, said in a press release March 24. However, "we believe recent actions, interpretations and commentary regarding various aspects of the program place Centra at an unacceptable competitive disadvantage."
