Canada’s VersaBank Unveils Pricing for $55M IPO

VersaBank, the first digital-only bank in Canada, has announced the pricing for its previously announced initial public offering (IPO) of its common shares.

The Ontario bank said Wednesday (Sept. 22) it will issue 5.5 million shares at a price of $10 (U.S.) per share, or $12.80 per share in Canadian dollars, for gross proceeds of $55 million. The offering is scheduled to close Friday (Sept. 24), subject to customary closing conditions.

Versa said in a news release that the offering is being carried out by collection of underwriters led by Raymond James & Associates, Inc. as sole bookrunning manager, along with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. as co-manager, as well as their respective Canadian broker dealer affiliates.

The bank says it expects the net proceeds of the offering will go to general banking purposes and will qualify as Common Equity Tier 1 capital for the Bank.

VersaBank says it has also given the underwriters the option to buy as much as 825,000 additional common shares, which represents 15 percent of the shares to be sold pursuant to the public offering, simply to cover the underwriters’ over-allocation position, if any, as well as for market stabilization purposes. The underwriters can exercise this option for up to 30 days after the offer closes.

Read more: Canada’s VersaBank Plans New York IPO

VersaBank announced the IPO earlier this month. It bills itself as a Canadian Schedule I chartered bank that employs proprietary FinTech solutions to “meet the needs of the country’s underserved banking populations profitably while reducing risk.”

Learn more: VersaBank Announces Plans For Digital Currency

VersaBank has also said it plans to launch a digital currency known as VCAD. It will be represented one-to-one with the Canadian dollar and be the first digital currency to represent a fiat currency, and the first to be issued and backed by deposits of a North American bank.

VersaBank will work with several organizations to launch VCAD, including Stablecorp, Canada crypto manager 3iQ, and Mavennet, a Canadian leader in blockchain development.