SouthFirst Bancshares Inc. of Sylacauga, Ala., is going private.
Processing Content
The $139 million-asset company said last week that it is delisting its shares from the American Stock Exchange, because the cost of being publicly traded is too high and the shares are traded too thinly to provide much benefit to shareholders.
It expects the stock to be delisted within about 60 days.
In a filing last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SouthFirst said that Howe Barnes Investments Inc. of Chicago will act as a market maker for its stock on the over-the-counter bulletin board.
Since 2002 dozens of small banking companies have gone private, citing the high cost of compliance since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed that year.
