NEW YORK (
TheStreet) --
Regions Financial (
RF) on Wednesday announced that it had fully repaid $3.5 billion in federal bailout funds.
The Birmingham, Ala., lender had issued preferred shares to the U.S. Treasury in November 2008, for assistance received through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.
The repayment followed the company's sale of its Morgan Keegan brokerage subsidiary to Raymond James Financial, for $1.2 billion, and a $900 million offering of common shares, on March 19.
Regions said that it had "previously paid a total of $593 million in dividends to taxpayers,: and that "on an annual ongoing basis, the repurchase eliminates the payment of $175 million in dividends on these securities."
Regions Financial's shares were down over 3% in afternoon trading, to $6.44.
Interested in more on Regions Financial? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for this stock. --
Written by Philip van Doorn in Jupiter, Fla. To contact the writer, click here:
Philip van Doorn.
To follow the writer on Twitter, go to
http://twitter.com/PhilipvanDoorn.
To submit a news tip, send an email to:
tips@thestreet.com.
