Stockholders' Equity

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

NOTE 14 – STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY

Preferred Stock and Common Stock

On October 22, 2018, Oriental completed the conversion of all of its 84,000 shares of Series C preferred stock into common stock. Each share of Series C preferred stock was converted into 86.4225 shares of common stock. Upon conversion, the Series C preferred stock is no longer outstanding and all rights with respect to the Series C preferred stock have ceased and terminated, except the right to receive the number of whole shares of common stock issuable upon conversion of the Series C preferred stock and any required cash-in-lieu of fractional shares. At both March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, preferred and common stock paid-in capital amounted $92.0 million and $59.9 million, respectively.

Additional Paid-in Capital

Additional paid-in capital represents contributed capital in excess of par value of common and preferred stock net of the costs of issuance. As of both March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, accumulated issuance costs charged against additional paid-in capital amounted to $13.6 million and $10.1 million for common and preferred stock, respectively.

Legal Surplus

The Puerto Rico Banking Act requires that a minimum of 10% of the Bank’s net income for the year be transferred to a reserve fund until such fund (legal surplus) equals the total paid in capital on common and preferred stock. At March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, the Bank’s legal surplus amounted to $92.6 million and $90.2 million, respectively. The amount transferred to the legal surplus account is not available for the payment of dividends to shareholders.

Treasury Stock

Under Oriental’s current stock repurchase program, it is authorized to purchase in the open market up to $7.7 million of its outstanding shares of common stock. The shares of common stock repurchased are to be held by Oriental as treasury shares. During the quarters ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, Oriental did not repurchase any shares under the program.

At March 31, 2019 the number of shares that may yet be purchased under the $70 million program is estimated at 390,644 and was calculated by dividing the remaining balance of $7.7 million by $19.79 (closing price of Oriental's common stock at March 31, 2019).

The activity in connection with common shares held in treasury by Oriental for the quarters ended March 31, 2019 and 2018 is set forth below:

	Quarter Ended March 31,
	2019			2018
		Dollar			Dollar
	Shares	Amount		Shares	Amount
	(In thousands, except shares data)
Beginning of period	8,591,310	$	103,633	8,678,427	$	104,502
Common shares used upon lapse of restricted stock units and options	(34,507)		(437)	(20,900)		(360)
End of period	8,556,803	$	103,196	8,657,527	$	104,142