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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
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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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