BofA: Dilution Before Dishonor (BAC)

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) holders decided that swallowing more dilution was preferable to having Uncle Sam as a business partner.  After all, it is easier to have a little less than to have every politician from local levels to the administration calling the fiduciaries in charge of running your company by the term ‘fat cats’ every time the cameras and microphones are on.  The bank’s shareholders voted in favor of raising the number of authorized common shares to fund its TARP repayment.  This effectively came in at 10% dilution to raise the common shares by about 1.3 billion to 11.3 billion.

The special shareholder meeting vote was easily in favor with a 76% share vote from 80% of the shares casting votes.  It was required after it repaid $45 billion to get out from under the TARP after the loan was repaid with the bank’s cash on hand and more than $19 billion of new capital via ‘common equivalent securities.’

The conversion of the common equivalent securities is set to take place Wednesday morning.  Bank of America was unable to just sell common stock because of the requirements.  Brian Moynihan, its new CEO, effectively said he did not want the added dilution but it was the best way to run the company going forward.

Shares are down 1.2% at $16.01 late in the trading day and not on any unusual trading volume to note.  Dilution of 10% never felt so good.

JON C. OGG