Certain shareholders of Toronto-based First National Financial Corp. sold 1,259,240 shares of the company's common stock in a recently completed secondary offering.

The shares were sold at C$42.40 apiece, for aggregate gross proceeds of about C$53.4 million to the selling shareholders. The company did not receive any proceeds from the secondary offering and the net proceeds were received by the selling shareholders.

The offering was completed on a bought-deal basis by an underwriting syndicate co-led by National Bank Financial Inc. and TD Securities Inc., and also including BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., CIBC World Markets Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and Scotia Capital Inc. The transaction included 79,240 common shares of First National Financial sold to underwriters by the selling shareholders upon partial exercise of the overallotment option.

One of the selling shareholders is controlled by Stephen Smith, who is co-founder, chairman and CEO of First National Financial. The other two selling shareholders are controlled by Moray Tawse, co-founder and executive vice president of the company.

Smith now beneficially owns or controls 22,409,355 common shares of First National Financial, representing about 37.4% of the common shares outstanding, while Tawse now beneficially owns or controls 20,409,355 common shares of the company, representing about 34.0% of the common shares outstanding, according to a news release.