UPDATE 2-Rodman & Renshaw Q3 tops view; shrs sink on stake sale
* Q3 adj EPS $0.42 vs est $0.14
* Q3 rev up almost eight-fold to $65.6 mln
* Says files for $75 mln mixed shelf
* Two top executives to sell part of their stake in co
* Shares fall as much as 13 pct (Adds conference call details, background; updates share movement)
Oct 22 (Reuters) - Rodman & Renshaw Capital Group Inc (RODM.O) posted quarterly profit above estimates, but its shares sank as much as 13 percent, after the U.S. investment bank said two of its top executives would offload a part of their stakes in the company.
In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, the company said it filed for a mixed shelf offering of $75 million, and that its chief executive and investment banking head will sell up to 3 million shares they own.
Paul Revere LLC, controled by Rodman Chief Executive Edward Rubin, will sell 2.75 million of the 12.7 million Rodman shares it owns, the company said in the filing.
John Borer, currently head of Rodman's investment banking division, will offload 250,000 shares. He currently owns about 2.4 million Rodman shares.
Both executives were not immediately available for comment.
"While we rarely like to see management selling shares, we note that the pro forma ownership stakes remain high, so the management team will still have plenty invested," Fox-Pitt Kelton analyst Steven Fu said.
On Thursday, Rodman's third-quarter profit beat market expectations, helped mainly by strength at its investment banking segment and its new merchant banking segment. [ID:nWNAB2508]
On a conference call with analysts, Rodman said it was exploring the idea of setting up an office in China, as it looks to benefit from Chinese companies raising money in the United States.
Rodman is also stepping up efforts to service small companies in sectors such as energy, clean technology and regional banking, investment banking head Borer had said in a recent interview with Reuters. [ID:nBNG514623]
Shares of the company were down 10 percent at $5.29 in afternoon trade Thursday on Nasdaq. They had hit a low of $5.14 earlier in the session. (Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by Pradeep Kurup)
