VersaBank prices upcoming IPO in US
23:11, 22 September 2021
VersaBank will issue five million shares when it completes an IPO in the US IPO later this week.
The Canadian digital-only bank priced its shares at $10 (£7.34) on Wednesday in a news release. The company expects to earn gross proceeds of $55m (£40.37m).
London, Ontario-based Versa said it has given a group of underwriters headed by Raymond James an option to purchase an additional 825,000 common shares that represent 15% of shares to be sold as part of the public offering.
The additional shares are intended to cover the underwriters’s over-allocation position and for market-stabilisation purposes.
Trade on Nasdaq Global Select
Versa is slated to go public on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol VBNK on on Friday. The company already trades publicly in Canada on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE). The TSE share price closed up 8.35% on Wednesday.
Versa will continue to trade on the TSE following the IPO in the US.
The company announced its US IPO plans earlier this month. The company bills itself as the world’s first fully digital financial institution.
Cryptocurrency in works
The company plans to launch a cryptocurrency known as VCAD, which will be pegged one-to-one to the Canadian dollar. Versa aims to make VCAD the first digital currency pegged to traditional, or fiat, money, using deposits in its bank.
During a conference call to discuss Versa’s latest quarterly report, Versa president and CEO David Taylor said the company, hopes to tap into the global $80bn (£58.72bn) stablecoin market.
A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency pegged to fiat money or other asset classes, such as gold, that are designed to stabilise its value. When pegged to a fiat currency, a stablecoin’s value fluctuates with it – rather than with other potentially volatile market dynamics.