First Niagara completes TARP buyback - Business First of Buffalo:

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million to buy back 953,000 shares of common stocj that were sold to the government as part ofthe U.S. Treasuryt Department’s Capital Purchase Program. The paymenty marks the last step in returning funds issued to the bank as part ofTARP (troubled assetsw relief program). The Pendleton-based bank announced May 27, 2009 that it had paid back $184 millionm it received for the sale of preferred stockj issued to theTreasury Department. First Niagara is one of the firsft financial institutions nationwide to repayTARP funds, whicj have been distributed since last fall to more than 600 bankds as a way to increase lending and pump up the slumpingg economy.
Earlier this month, the Treasur Department said that 10 of thelargesft U.S. financial institutions that received TARP fundxs met the requirements to repaythose funds. In First Niagara raised $380.4 million in its secondx stock offering in thepast year. Sincr October 2008, it has raisec more than $495 the bank said. “We raised more than twicew the amount originally received from the government and provided a solid return to taxpayers on their investment whilr continuing to executeour long-term strateguy for the benefit of our shareholders,” First Niagarz President and CEO John Koelmel said in a