Venture Financial Group Inc. of DuPont, Wash., is postponing its initial public offering.
The parent of the $1.1 billion-asset Venture Bank announced in July that it expected to conduct the offering in the fourth quarter, but Ken F. Parsons, Venture Financial's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a press release Wednesday that it is tabling the IPO "primarily due to market conditions" for financial stocks.
"When market conditions improve, we will revisit our decision to go public," Mr. Parsons said.
Venture Financial had said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this month that the Puget Sound area has been experiencing "vibrant economic activity" over the past few years. Citing Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data, it said that overall deposits in the region grew at an average of 9.8% annually from June 2002 to June 2006. It also said that the median household income was $63,324, well ahead of the national and state medians.
The company planned to sell 1.8 million shares at an estimated price of $21 to $23 each, increasing the number of shares outstanding to about 9 million. It had said that it would raise $36.2 million to $41.8 million from the offering, and that it planned to use some of the proceeds to build branches, make acquisitions, or both.
Venture Bank, which changed its name from First Community Bank in May 2003, has more than doubled its assets in the last five years.
The company has bought five banks since 1993. Most recently it acquired the $118 million-asset Redmond National Bank in 2005.
Venture Financial's second-quarter earnings rose 21% from the same quarter last year, to $3.2 million.
The offering would have made it one of the five largest publicly trading commercial banking companies headquartered in the Puget Sound region as measured by total assets, according to its SEC filing.
