Monarch Financial repurchases warrants from Treasury

Monarch Financial Holdings Inc., the parent company of the Virginia-based Monarch Bank, has fully exited the Troubled Asset Relief Program by repurchasing the warrants it issued to the government in December 2008.

Monarch said that it bought the warrants in a negotiated settlement with the Treasury Department for $260,000. The warrants would have allowed the Treasury to purchase 132,353 of the company's common shares at an exercise price of $8.33 per share.

Monarch's stock ended last week at $6.64 a share.

Monarch took $14.7 million in TARP aid from the government in exchange for preferred shares and warrants. The company repaid the money and redeemed the preferred shares on Dec. 23, leaving the warrants as its final link to the program.

Brad E. Schwartz, Monarch's chief executive officer, proudly noted that Monarch also paid $665,583 in dividends to the government over the year or so that the Treasury held the preferred shares.

"Unlike the bailouts heard in the press and on the nightly news over the past year," he said, "this investment has not only been repaid in full, but has been repaid with a solid return to taxpayers."

Monarch announced Dec. 3 that it had completed a $20 million stock offering with an eye toward redeeming the preferred stock issued to the Treasury.

The company announced last month that it generated record profits of $1.22 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, and record profits of $4.85 million for the full year.