Butterfield Bank plans to hold a registered public secondary offering of up to $100 million worth of its common shares.

The bank will not receive any of the proceeds of the sale as the offering is from a group of major shareholders.

In a primary prospectus document filed yesterday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Butterfield details the selling shareholders, topped by the Carlyle Group, the bank’s largest shareholder with 7.6 million shares representing a 14.3 per cent stake.

Other institutions on the list include the Wellcome Trust, which owns 1.85 million shares, or 3.5 per cent of the bank. Both Carlyle and the Wellcome Trust were among the investors who ploughed a combined $550 million into the bank as part of a recapitalisation in 2010 after hundreds of millions of dollars of losses during the US subprime meltdown.

Also among the sellers is Wellington Management Group, who bought into the bank during the initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange last September. Wellington, an 88-year-old Philadelphia-based global asset manager with nearly $1 trillion under management, owns about 5.1 million shares representing a 9.5 per cent stake.

Also listed as a selling shareholder is Rosebowl Western Ltd, which owns 2.6 million shares, or a 4.9 per cent stake. A bank spokesman said: “The selling shareholders have not yet determined the number of shares to be offered and the timing of the offering remains subject to market conditions.”

The bank’s share price has gained nearly 40 per cent since last year’s IPO. Yesterday, the shares fell more than 1.3 per cent in New York to close on $32.15.