Symetra Financial Corp. now hopes to raise about $435 million when it makes an initial public offering of common stock, the company says in a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Back in October 2009, Symetra, Bellevue, Wash., suggested that the IPO could raise about $575 million. Symetra filed a registration statement and several amended registration statements that did not say how many shares the company would sell, or what the price might be.
The latest amendment, filed today, indicates that Symetra wants to sell 17 million shares of its own shares, and that current company stockholders plan to sell 9.7 million shares of Symetra common stock through the same offering. The offering price could be about $12 to $14 per share, and the underwriters would have an option to buy 4 million additional shares to cover over-allotments, the company says.
Safeco Corp., Seattle, created Symetra in 2004, by spinning off its life and annuity operations. White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda, and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Omaha, Neb., which lead the investor group that helped form Symetra and still controls the company, "are not participating in this offering as selling stockholders," Symetra says.
After the IPO was completed, White Mountains and Berkshire Hathaway each would control about 22.5% of Symetra's common stock, Symetra says.
Symetra would end up with about $208 million in "net primary proceeds." It would pay a quarterly dividend of about 5 cents per common share, and its stock would trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SYA.
Symetra generated about $22 million in net income in 2008 on $1.5 billion in revenue by selling products such as medical stop-loss insurance, limited medical benefit plans, group life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, and group disability insurance. Symetra also sells individual life insurance; immediate annuites; fixed and variable deferred annuities; and group annuities designed for use in retirement plans.
Symetra today repeated the assertion, included in earlier versions of the registration statement, that the state of the economy could help the company as well as hurt it.
"We believe that the recent market disruption has created a tremendous opportunity to build our existing relationships and add new long-term relationships because of our simple to understand product designs and because many of our competitors are in the midst of cleaning up their product suites and balance sheets," Symetra says.
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