Business & Finance
Business and Finance
Business and Finance
Thu, December 16, 2010
Wed, December 15, 2010 Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, Bank of America, Citigroup and Varian Medical
CHICAGO--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Zacks.com Analyst Blog features Huntington Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq: [ HBAN ]), First Horizon National Corp. (NYSE: [ FHN ]), Bank of America Corp (NYSE: [ BAC ]), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: [ C ]) and Varian Medical (NYSE: [ VAR ]).
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Here are highlights from Tuesdaya™s Analyst Blog:
Regional Banks Plan TARP Repayment
Regional banks are gearing up to repay the bailout money received under the U.S. Governmenta™s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Yesterday, two regional U.S. banks a" Huntington Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq: [ HBAN ]) and First Horizon National Corp. (NYSE: [ FHN ]) announced their capital raise plans in this context. It comes roughly after a year when biggies such as Bank of America Corp (NYSE: [ BAC ]) and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: [ C ]) went for capital raises through stock offering to repay the TARP loan.
Columbus-based Huntington Bancshares has announced a $920 million of common stock offering. The bank also expects a $300 million of subordinated debt offering in the future. It would use the proceeds to repurchase $1.4 billion of Series B Fixed Rate Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock it issued to the U.S. Treasury under TARP. The time of repurchase would depend on the authorization of the banking regulators and the approval of the Treasury.
Similarly, Memphis-based First Horizon National Corp. also announced a $250 million common stock offering. In addition, the bank plans to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of common shares sold. The company plans to use the net proceeds of this offering, together with the net proceeds of a planned debt offering to repurchase 866,540 preferred shares issued to the Treasury under TARP and redeem $103 million of other debt.
The repayment of TARP money can be viewed as a sign of recovery of the institutions as well as the economy. The banks would be free of significant government interventions. In addition, this is expected to create a pressure on the other banks that are yet to repay the bailout money as their capital strengths would be questioned by investors. Yet, the capital raise through common stock offering would result in future earnings dilution, thereby somewhat muting investorsa™ appetite for the stocks.
Varian TrueBeam Expands Footprint
Leading integrated radiotherapy systems maker Varian Medical (NYSE: [ VAR ]) has achieved an important clinical milestone as its TrueBeam therapy system successfully treated more than 30 patients at a leading cancer center in Switzerland.
Doctors used the novel treatment procedure to treat cancer patients at the Kantonsspital Winterthur in northern Switzerland, a public hospital serving 400,000 patients. It became the second hospital in the country (after the Zurich University Hospital) to adopt the TrueBeam therapy. A number of hospitals across Europe have already commenced treatment using the TrueBeam system.
TrueBeam enables fast and precise image-guided treatments, allowing patients with various cancer types to benefit from the therapy. Kantonsspital Winterthur plans to expand the deployment of TrueBeam in 2012 and aims to use the therapy system to treat patients with stereotactic body radiosurgery (aSBRSa), a non-invasive radiotherapy procedure.
Introduced in April 2010, the TrueBeam platform is used in image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery to treat multiple cancer types. It includes the TrueBeam STx system, which is geared for sophisticated radiosurgery that can treat a moving target with considerable accuracy and speed.
TrueBeam has the capability to provide treatment 50% faster, along with a dose delivery rate that can reach 2,400 monitor units per minute, which is twice the maximum output of conventional systems for radiosurgery or radiotherapy. The enhanced ability ensures that patients experience greater comfort due to shorter treatment period and superior precision.
TrueBeam was a significant contributor to Variana™s Oncology Systems segment order growth in fourth-quarter fiscal 2010. The company has so far received orders for more than 125 TrueBeam systems since the producta™s inception.
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