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Buyout rumors kick up Fifth Third's stock BizJournals 5-24 Buyout speculation is the likely driver of a surge in Fifth Third Bancorp's stock price on Wednesday. The stock jumped 3.4% to $42.83 Wednesday, hitting a 21-month high. More than 8.8 million shares changed hands, more than four times the usual volume. "Clearly, somebody thinks something is going to happen over the long weekend," said Matt McCormick, a portfolio manager at Cincinnati money management firm Bahl & Gaynor. A lot of mergers and acquisitions tend to take place over holiday weekends, giving investment bankers more time to finalize details, McCormick said. Options trading activity also points to buyout speculation, he added. Another possible driver of Fifth Third's stock gain is its recently announced stock buyback. Fifth Third said Monday its board authorized the buyback of up to 30 million shares of stock. Wilmington to Acquire Bingham Legg AP 5-07 Wilmington Trust Corp. said Monday it signed a deal to acquire Boston-based wealth management firm Bingham Legg Advisers LLC. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Wilmington said the transaction would help it expand in Boston, the fifth largest high-net worth market in the United States. Bingham Legg will be renamed Wilmington Trust at the close of the deal. BLA President and Chief Executive Peter E. Simmons will become president of the Wilmington Trust's Wealth Advisory Services office in Boston. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter. Ratings & Dividend Changes An analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus is advising investors to sell Fifth Third Bancorp's stock. Chris Mutascio, an analyst at St. Louis-based Stifel Nicolaus, said in a report issued Tuesday that the recent rally in Fifth Third's stock price isn't based on fundamentals. Instead, he figures the stock's price move is based more on takeover speculation. That, he said, isn't likely to happen. Mutascio figures Cincinnati-based Fifth Third's fair market value is $38 per share, explaining his decision to lower his rating on the stock from "hold" to "sell." Fifth Third's recently elevated stock price doesn't account for analysts' consensus estimates that its earnings will grow 2.6% this year, Mutascio wrote in the report. That's just below the 2.7% average for large banks, yet Fifth Third's stock trades at a 24% premium to its peers. Further, he added, FITB still faces some bad-loan issues. Its net charge-offs improved from the fourth quarter, but they were the seventh-highest out of 50 large banks that Stifel Nicolaus follows. Home Page Factoids Previous Update |