Avidia Bank's Framingham branch building in 2019. Photo courtesy of Avidia Bank
Avidia Bank announced that it’s raised nearly $192 million in its bid to become a publicly traded bank.
The bank’s planned holding company received valid subscription orders for more than the $191,762,500 maximum amount it sought to raise. Hudson-based Avidia needed to sell a minimum of 14.45 million shares to complete the conversion and stock offering.
“We believe the stock holding company form of organization will provide us with access to additional resources to expand the products and services we offer our customers,” Avidia said in its initial filing. “We believe that the additional capital raised in the stock offering will enable us to take advantage of business opportunities that may not otherwise be available to us, while retaining our commitment to remain an independent community bank.
Avidia’s initial filing noted that commercial real estate lending, commercial and industrial lending and payment processing are potential areas of growth using money raised in the conversion.
In its application for the conversion, Avidia stated that if it sold 17 million shares of common stock in the stock offering at the midpoint of the offering range, resulting in net proceeds of $164.5 million, the holding company would invest $82.3 million in the bank, loan $14.4 million to an employee stock ownership plan to fund its purchase of shares of common stock in the stock offering, contribute $1 million to the charitable foundation and retain the remaining $66.8 million in cash for itself.
The closing of the conversion and stock offering is still subject to the receipt of final regulatory approval and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. The company’s common stock is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol “AVBC”.
If completed, Avidia’s conversion would be the second in 2025, after Winchester Savings Bank filed plans for its own offering that will see its current mutual holding company remain the newly public bank’s largest shareholder.
The bank was formed in 2007 by merging Hudson Savings Bank and Westborough Savings Bank. It has $2.71 billion in assets and $2.14 billion in deposits and nine branches in a roughly triangular slice of the MetroWest area between Leominster, Shrewsbury and Framingham.
