Trustmark buys back government-owned preferred stock for $215 million plus dividend

Trustmark pays back $215 million government aid

JACKSON, Miss. — Regional bank Trustmark Corp. has paid back the government’s $215 million investment under the financial bailout plan.

The parent of Trustmark Bank, which operates more than 150 offices in Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, issued 215,000 nonvoting senior preferred shares to the Treasury Department last fall in exchange for its investment under the agency’s Capital Purchase Program. Treasury also received warrants to purchase Trustmark common shares with a market value of $32.3 million.

Trustmark said Wednesday it bought back all 215,000 preferred shares from the U.S. Treasury, paying $215 million plus a dividend of $716,700. The repurchase will result in a one-time, non-cash charge of about $8.2 million, or 14 cents per share, to Trustmark’s fourth-quarter earnings.

Trustmark shares fell 13 cents to close at $19.86.

Also Wednesday, Bank of America Corp. paid back its $45 billion in aid, boosting the total amount of repaid TARP funds to about $116 billion. That’s out of a total of $453 billion that the government has extended to banks, insurers, automakers and other companies under the program.

Treasury now estimates that total bank repayments could reach up to $175 billion by the end of 2010.