Hamilton State Launches $4M Tender Offer

Hamilton State Bancshares Inc. is looking to repurchase up to $4.2 million of its common stock just five months after the Atlanta-area company received a hefty capital infusion to buy other banks.

The $948 million-asset company said Tuesday that it would buy back up to 641,285 shares of its common stock for $6.50 each. The Hoschton, Ga., company's tender offer expires Sept. 6.

Hamilton opened in 2004 to be a consolidator. In March it raised $231.6 million from affiliates of Angelo, Gordon & Co. and Tailwind Capital Group LLC. The banking company, led by Robert Oliver, a former chief executive of Atlanta's Premier Bancshares Inc., quickly went to work.

In April, Hamilton paid $7.4 million to the Treasury Department to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Later that month, Hamilton acquired the failed, $330.2 million-asset Bartow County Bank of Cartersville, Ga., in a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In June it bought the deposits and certain assets of the $340 million-asset McIntosh State Bank in Jackson, Ga., after it failed.

Oliver did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the tender offer.

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