MutualFirst in Ind. Exits SBLF

MutualFirst Financial (MFSF) in Muncie, Ind., has exited the Treasury Department's Small Business Lending Fund.

The $1.4 billion-asset company paid $22 million to redeem the preferred shares it issued through the program, plus accrued dividends, it announced Monday. It received about $29 million through the program in 2011, and redeemed a portion of the shares for about $7.2 million in April.

MutualFirst funded the redemption with a dividend from its banking unit, it said.

"Our participation in the SBLF was advantageous to our company as we emerged from the recession," said MutualFirst Chief Executive David Heeter in a news release. "We are very pleased that [we] have sufficient capital to fully redeem the SBLF preferred shares without incurring any dilution to our common shareholders or additional debt."

The SBLF was established by the Small Business Jobs Act in 2010 to spur small-business lending by banks with less than $10 billion of assets. The Treasury Department provided more than $4 billion to 332 lenders that through the program. Seventeen companies have exited the program by fully redeeming their shares and 14 have partially redeemed their shares as of Sept. 1, the Treasury said in its latest report to Congress on the program.