Pinnacle Financial Partners Goes into Fundraising Mode

Add Nashville-based Pinnacle Financial Partners, Inc. (PNPF) to the list of companies that is keeping firms like Raymond James & Associates busy.  Last Thursday, Pinnacle signed an underwriting agreement (documented in this filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission) covering the planned sale of 7.7 million shares of common stock. It said it expected to net $95.1 million in new capital from the sale.

However, Raymond James exercised an option for an additional 1.16 million shares to cover overallotments, lifting the net proceeds to $109.1 million.

Pinnacle is the second-largest bank holding company based in Tennessee. It has 31 offices in eight Middle Tennessee counties and two offices in Knoxville.  

Last December, Pinnacle got $95 million in taxpayer capital through the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). It issued the government 95,000 shares of preferred stock and warrants to buy 534,910 shares of common stock.  

Pinnacle said in a press release last week that it would use the proceeds of the offering for "general corporate purposes, including additional capital for Pinnacle National Bank and possible repurchase from the U.S. Treasury of the $95 million of Series A preferred stock, and associated warrants, issued in connection with the Treasury's TARP Capital Purchase Program."  

Pinnacle says on its Web site that it was the only publicly traded bank in the Nashville and Knoxville markets to post a stock gain in 2008. 

"Over the last eight years, from Dec. 31, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2008, the average increase in the price of Pinnacle shares was 33.2 percent per year,'' the company said. "Pinnacle shareholders have enjoyed the second-highest total return of all publicly traded banks in the United States over the past five years, according to research firm SNL Financial LC."  

We'll keep an eye open and let you know how Pinnacle fares from here.