The Savings Institute Bank and Trust Co. should be fully public by Thursday.

The bank's parent company, SI Financial Group Inc., said more than 6.5 million shares of common stock are expected to be sold to complete the conversion to a publicly owned financial institution from a mutual holding company.

The company announced in September that it would be raising capital through an initial public offering of stock that would transfer to the public 61.9 percent of the company. The bank was previously controlled by a private entity known as SI Bancorp MHC.

"As a result of the conversion and offering, SI Bancorp, MHC and SI Financial Group will cease to exist and new SI Financial Group ... will become the parent holding company of Savings Institute Bank and Trust," the bank said in a statement.

The subscription and community offerings are expected to be sold at $8 a share by Wednesday. Nearly 400,000 shares were to be bought by the bank's employee stock ownership plan.

"As part of the conversion, each existing share of SI Financial Group is expected to be converted into the right to receive 0.8981 of a share of new SI Financial Group common stock." the company said. "The exchange ratio ensures that, after the conversion and offering, the public shareholders will maintain approximately the same ownership interest in new SI Financial Group as they owned in SI Financial Group."

Stockholders will get cash in lieu of fractional shares based on the offering price. About 10.5 million shares of SI Financial stock will be outstanding following the conversion.

The bank's common stock will continue to trade on the Nasdaq exchange under the trading symbol SIFI through today. For the following 20 trading days starting Thursday, shares of new SI Financial Group common stock will trade under the symbol SIFID before again reverting to the usual designation.

l.howard@theday.com