The Hartford Prices Share Offerings

The Hartford Financial Services Group (Hartford) has priced an offering of 52.253 million shares of its common stock at a price of $27.75 per share. The company has also priced a concurrent offering of 20 million depositary shares, each representing a 1/40th interest in The Hartford's 72.5% Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock, Series F, at a price of $25 per depository share, according to a press release from the firm.

The underwriters for the respective offerings will have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15 percent of the original issuance amount, or approximately 8 million shares, of common stock and up to an additional 3 million depositary shares, in each case at the public offering price less the underwriting discount, according to the press release. The closing is expected to occur on or about March 22, 2010, The Hartford says.

The Hartford plans to use the net proceeds of the offerings, together with proceeds from a planned debt offering and available funds to repurchase in full the $3.4 billion of The Hartford's preferred shares issued to the U.S. Treasury Department under Treasury's Capital Purchase Program once it has received approval to do so, the press release says. Following the repurchase, the U.S. Treasury Department will continue to hold a warrant to purchase approximately 52 million shares of The Hartford's common stock at an exercise price of $9.79 per share, subject to adjustment, according to the The Hartford. The company says it does not intend to repurchase the warrant.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio