MLV Tops 2012 ATM Transaction League Table for Third Straight Year

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- MLV & Co., the rapidly growing New York-based investment bank, completed 35 at-the-market (ATM) transactions in 2012, more than any other investment bank, underwriting 23% of the 153 ATM transactions filed in 2012 through December 31.  The other firms in the top five ATM underwriters were, respectively, Bank of America, Cantor Fitzgerald, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.  The total number of ATM transactions has increased annually since 2006 and has become an ever larger percentage of total follow-on offering activity. The 153 transactions in 2012 was an increase of approximately 25% over 2011 and represented 21% of all follow-on offerings.

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The growing popularity of the ATM speaks to how such offerings effectively align the interests of management and its bankers, lower the cost of capital for a company, and preserve shareholder value. MLV & Co. published a whitepaper on the ATM at http://mlvco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ATM_.pdf, illuminating these benefits and addressing some of the most common misperceptions.

"Many of the arguments against ATM transactions are made by market players who are merely trying to protect more traditional – and more costly – secondary offerings," said Dean Colucci, President of MLV & Co.  "Steadily growing numbers of increasingly larger companies are raising greater amounts of capital with ATMs, however, affirm what we've known for years – the ATM is a more efficient means of raising capital than any alternative.  We are not surprised to see more corporate boards urging their management teams to consider ATM transactions to meet their needs for new capital."

"We started MLV & Co. in 2010 to help companies raise capital more efficiently," said Patrice McNicoll , Chief Executive Officer of MLV & Co. "Our rapid success with ATMs demonstrates the hunger in the marketplace for solutions that align the interests of management and its bankers, lowers the cost of capital, and preserves shareholder value. We are also seeing substantial growth in demand for preferred equity and exchange traded notes or baby bonds, and we playing a leadership role in those markets as well."

In additional to its leading position in ATM transactions, MLV & Co. ranked sixth among firms underwriting stock offerings for REITs in 2012, according to SNL Financial.  The other firms in the top ten were uniformly bulge bracket entities, and included RBC Capital Markets and JP Morgan, respectively first and second, as well as Deutsche Bank (#7), Citigroup (#8) and Credit Suisse (#9). 

About ATMs

ATMs are a type of shelf-based (S-3) offering which provides a public issuer the ability to sell publicly traded shares at the prevailing market price at the time and amount of its choosing. Issuers have control over the timing and size of transactions and can modify parameters as desired. With ATM issuance:  

• Companies can raise capital opportunistically, in times of need or strength, with a long-term strategy, rather than submit to a big, one-time, event-driven deal;
• Companies have the ability to sell shares whenever they choose, at the current market price;
• Companies can decide to take advantage of even very short windows of opportunity to issue shares (or not), such as part of a trading day, for any reason;
• Financing goals can be achieved without unnecessarily diluting shareholders and at a lower cost of capital compared with traditional approaches to corporate finance.

About MLV & Co.

MLV is a full service investment bank and institutional broker-dealer focused on providing independent financial advice and unique capital markets expertise to corporate and institutional clients in capital intensive industries such as energy, real estate, healthcare, and natural resources. With a focus on raising money efficiently for clients, MLV has been the market leader in At-the-Market transactions for both common and preferred equity for the past three years running.  

Prior to forming MLV & Co., MLV principals had originated approximately 65 ATM transactions and raised over $6 billion in equity capital through at-the-market issuance. Since MLV's inception in January 2010 through December 31, 2012, MLV has been the lead underwriter on 85 ATMs totaling nearly $3 billion in capital (as calculated at the time of filing), surpassing every other investment bank during this period. 

MLV believes that this success is due to:

• the ease and efficiency of MLV's ATM implementation
• the ATM's alignment of MLV's  interests with those of the issuer; and
• the quality of MLV's execution of ATM sales

MLV is a member of FINRA and the SIPC.

Company Contact:
Randy Billhardt
(212) 542-5882

Press Contact:
Steve DiMattia
(646) 695-2881

SOURCE MLV & Co.