Beneficial shares trading below IPO price

New minted shares in Beneficial Mutual Bancorp Inc. traded this morning for as little as $9.15, a 8.5 percent discount to the Philadelphia bank's $10-per-share IPO price on Friday.

By noon, however, the shares had climbed back to $9.56 on Nasdaq. In conjunction with Friday's sale of 23.61 million shares to eligible depositors of Beneficial Mutual Savings Bank, Beneficial acquired FMS Financial Corp., Burlington, for $182.5 million, including 11.92 million Beneficial shares and $64.2 million in cash. The Beneficial shares are trading under the ticker symbol BNCL.

Beneficial said it expected the merger to solidify its position as the largest bank headquartered in Philadelphia, with $3.8 billion in assets, $2.5 billion in deposits and more than 70 branches.