Web Search powered by YAHOO! SEARCH
share
email
font size
options
 
Friday, October 16, 2009
PA agri firm plans $54 million IPO

Penn Millers Holding Corp., the third-largest U.S. insurer of agribusinesses, expects to start trading on the Nasdaq global market Monday under the stock symbol PMIC.

Penn Millers, which employs around 100 under chief executive Douglas A. Gaudet at its Wilkes-Barre headquarters, used to be owned by policyholders as a mutual insurer; it was converted to a stock company under the Pennsylvania Mutual Stock Conversion Act, a law championed by Reading-based law firm Stevens & Lee, whose investment-banking affiliate, Griffin Financial Group, is managing the sale.

"Sixty percent of the business is agribusiness - granaries, fertilizer companies, feed mills," says Jeffrey Waldron, the Griffin managing director running the sale. Not farms, not truckers. The rest is "traditional business-owners' policies and commercial policies."  Rougly 10% of the company was bought by policyholders, 10% by an Employee Stock Ownership Program, and 10% by managers, directors, brokers, and Penn Miller agents around the country.

Penn Millers expects to raise $54 million in the public share sale. What will the company do with it? Expand, says Waldron. "It's a bit of a soft market in the insurance world right now," he told me. But Penn Millers expects to pick up business from industry leader Nationwide, and especially from No. 2 player Michigan Millers.

Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 10:41 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Comments   
0 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column, which is printed in the business pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Joe has worked at the Inquirer, mostly, since 1988. He has also written for Bloomberg and Gannett, authored the book Comcasted, majored in economics at Penn, and fathered six children. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com

Advertise Here