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Preferred and Common Stock
 3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2012
Preferred and Common Stock [Abstract]  
Preferred and Common Stock
Note 6 - Preferred and Common Stock

Preferred Stock
On January 9, 2009, the Company issued $25 million in Fixed Rate Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series A, having a liquidation preference of $1,000 per share, to the U.S. Treasury under the Capital Purchase Program ("the CPP Shares"). The CPP Shares call for cumulative dividends at a rate of 5.0% per year for the first five years, and at a rate of 9.0% per year in following years, payable quarterly in arrears on February 15, May 15, August 15 and November 15 of each year.
On August 24, 2011, the Company repurchased $12.5 million of the CPP Shares. The repurchase transaction was approved by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Company's primary regulator, as well as the Bank's primary regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, based on continued strong capital ratios after the repayment. Almost all of the repayment was made from retained earnings accumulated since the preferred stock was issued in 2009. After the repurchase, $12.5 million of the CPP shares remains outstanding. The Company may redeem the remaining CPP Shares at any time using any funds available, subject to the prior approval of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The CPP Shares are "perpetual" preferred stock, which means that neither Treasury nor any subsequent holder would have a right to require that the Company redeem any of the shares.
Incident to such issuance, the Company issued to the U.S. Treasury warrants (the "Warrants") to purchase up to 225,904 shares of the Company's common stock at a price per share of $16.60 (subject to adjustment). The CPP Shares and the related Warrants (and any shares of common stock issuable pursuant to the Warrants) are freely transferable by Treasury to third parties and the Company has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow for possible resale of such securities. The CPP Shares qualify as Tier 1 capital on the Company's books for regulatory purposes and rank senior to the Company's common stock and senior or at an equal level in the Company's capital structure to any other shares of preferred stock the Company may issue in the future.
As a condition to Treasury's purchase of the CPP Shares, during the time that Treasury holds any equity or debt instrument the Company issued, the Company is required to comply with certain restrictions and other requirements relating to the compensation of the Company's chief executive officer, chief financial officer and three other most highly compensated executive officers. These restrictions include a prohibition on severance payments to those executive officers upon termination of their employment and a $500,000 limit on the tax deductions the Company can take for compensation expense for each of those executive officers in a single year as well as a prohibition on bonus compensation to such officers other than limited amounts of long-term restricted stock.
The Warrants issued in conjunction with the sale of the CPP Shares have a term of ten years and could be exercised by Treasury or a subsequent holder at any time or from time to time during their term. To the extent they had not previously been exercised, the Warrants would expire after ten years. Treasury will not vote any shares of common stock it receives upon exercise of the Warrants, but that restriction would not apply to third parties to whom Treasury transferred the Warrants. The Warrants (and any common stock issued upon exercise of the Warrants) could be transferred to third parties separately from the CPP Shares. The proceeds from the sale of the CPP Shares were allocated between the CPP Shares and Warrants based on their relative fair values on the issue date. The fair value of the Warrants was determined using the Black-Scholes model which includes the following assumptions: common stock price of $16.60 per share, dividend yield of 4.70%, stock price volatility of 24.43%, and a risk-free interest rate of 2.01%. The discount on the CPP Shares was based on the value that was allocated to the Warrants upon issuance, and is being accreted back to the value of the CPP Shares over a five-year period (the expected life of the shares upon issuance) on a straight-line basis. The Warrants were unchanged as a result of the CPP Shares repurchase transaction and remain outstanding.

Common Stock
As a consequence of the Company's issuance of securities under the U.S. Treasury's Capital Purchase Program, its ability to repurchase stock while such securities remain outstanding is restricted to purchases from employee benefit plans. In the first three months of 2012, the Company repurchased no common stock.