PROVIDENCE – Citizens Financial Group Inc. has purchased an additional 288,283 shares of Bank of America stock on behalf of its wealth management clients, Citizens said Monday.
The stock purchases “were not made with the bank’s money,” said Citizens spokesman Peter Lucht. The purchases were made “with managed funds from our clients” with the bank’s wealth management advisers acting in their money management role.
Acting in that capacity, the Bank of America stock purchases in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 represented a 484 percent increase from the Bank of America stock that Citizens had previously purchased on behalf of its clients, according to the company’s 13F filing, dated Nov. 2, with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
Citizens previously has purchased 59,559 shares of Bank of America stock on behalf its clients. The latest purchases bring the total owned by its clients to 347,842 shares of Bank of America stock, with a total value of more than $10.2 million, according to the filing.
Bank of America’s stock price has been trading at higher levels in the past year. The stock’s 52-week range has been between $25.81 a share and $33.05 a share, after trading below $20 a share in previous years.
In reporting its third-quarter results last month, Bank of America posted earnings per share of 66 cents, beating analysts’ estimates and 43 percent higher than the third quarter last year. The bank’s profit in the third quarter was $7.2 billion, 32 percent greater than a year earlier. Revenue rose 4 percent to $22.8 billion in the quarter.
Other banks in which Citizens has purchased significant amounts of stock on behalf of its wealth management clients are New York City-based J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., with 204,235 shares worth $22.6 million, and New York City-based Citigroup Inc., with 176,249 shares worth $12.6 million, according to the bank’s 13F filing.
In Rhode Island, Bank of America and Citizens Bank are the state’s two largest consumer banks based on market share of deposits.
Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Blake@PBN.com
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified who purchased the Bank of America stock.
