Washington Trust announces $55M common stock offering

Washington Trust (WASH) Bancorp, parent company of The Washington Trust Company, of Westerly, announced it has commenced an underwritten public offering of $55M of the corporation’s common stock. The corporation intends to use the net proceeds of this offering for general corporate purposes to support continued organic growth and capital generation, which are expected to include investments in the bank and bank balance sheet optimization strategies involving the sale of lower-yielding loans and available for sale debt securities, the repayment of wholesale funding balances and the purchase of debt securities with current market yields. BofA Securities is serving as the sole book-running manager for the offering.