In July, Live Oak Bancshares Inc. became Wilmington’s only locally based public company.
The company, parent of Live Oak Bank, which was founded in 2008 in Wilmington, had signaled a possible intent in 2014 to go public, but withdrew the filing several months later when it received sufficient private financing to meet its immediate goals. In June 2015, however, it filed again with the SEC and this time pursued the procedure necessary for an initial private offering.
After courting potential investors for several weeks in preparation for an IPO, Live Oak on July 23 got approval from the SEC to issue public shares. The next day, several bank officials were in New York to ring the opening bell at Nasdaq, where the company is listed as LOB.
At the close of its first day of trading, LOB shares were selling at $18.55. In early December the share price was hovering at just above $13.
Since going public, the bank has shown growth, according to its third quarter 2015 report.
“We are on track to originate $1.1 billion this [calendar] year,” CEO and chairman Chip Mahan said in an October news release, commenting on the year-to-date loan production. “The year-to-date origination volume represents approximately a 40% growth over the same three-quarter period of 2014. This has been the result of growth in our legacy verticals as well as new verticals added in 2015.”
At the start of 2015, LOB was making SBA-guaranteed loans to businesses in seven industries (verticals). By the end of the year, that number had increased to 11. The bank is the nation’s second-largest SBA lender in terms of dollars, according to the SBA. In the 2014-15 federal fiscal year ended Sept. 30, Live Oak Bank made 966 SBA loans for a total of about $1.15 billion.
In September, the bank also launched a new eLending platform, which offers loans of $25,000 to $350,000 that can be used for renovations, remodels and acquisitions as well as for purchases of equipment and merchandise, according to the Live Oak Bank website. With the process conducted online, this program “offers approvals within 48 hours of receiving documents, little to no equity requirements, fast closings (generally within 30 days), no prepayment penalties, 10-year terms (fully amortizing, no balloons), capped closing costs and low rates,” the website states.
The bank has been growing physically as well. Its second building on the Tiburon Drive campus opened in June and was soon filled as the company’s workforce grew to 325 by year’s end, at least double its size a year earlier. A third building is in the planning stages.
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