U.S. Treasury will sell Sterling Savings stake

Sterling Savings Bank, Washington's second-largest bank with $9.5 billion in assets, said late Tuesday that the U.S. Treasury will sell about 5.7 million shares of Sterling's common stock.

The Spokane bank, which will not received any of the proceeds, sold $303 million in preferred stock to the Treasury under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The shares were later converted to common stock. The secondary offering represents about 9 percent of Sterling's outstanding common stock.

By Sanjay Bhatt By Sanjay Bhatt; Seattle Times business staff

By Sanjay Bhatt
By Sanjay Bhatt; Seattle Times business staff