OT Mutual bank convertions If you are an employee of the bank or you have an account with the bank you can invest when the bank goes IPO. unless the bank is terrible or you buy your bank during the worst financial crisis you almost cannot loose money. If the IPO is a good deal then it still may be hard to get shares. BNCL converted in the summer of 2007(a very Bad time) I tried to invest 160,000 dollars. Because I had a CD valued at 1600 dollare they let me have only 2300 shares(Actually a good thing because the shares droppped initially after the IPO. You dont have to own a CD or a savings account to buy shares. usually right after the IPO the shares a still fairly cheap and you can buy the shares in the open market and still do very well. A lot of these banks have only done a 1st step conversion which means that half the control of the bank is still with the holding company. A lot of these banks are going to do a second stge conversion according to the article in Barrons. A full convertion is usually the best type of conversion for non-employees but that type of conversion has not typically been done very often until now. You can now buy a bank on the open market that has done a 1st stage convertion and hopefully will soon do a complete conversion. If the bank does that you will probably make money. If you buy a bank right after it does a complete conversion IPO you will probably also make money. I used to get a newsletter from SNL in Virginia to try to stay up to date with the bank conversion market but the last 4 years this type of investment almost completely dried up. I apologize for talking about bank stocks on a biotech board Bob
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