| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
France Tel sells $16bn shares
PARIS, France (Reuters) -- France Telecom on Monday launched a long-awaited 15 billion euro ($15.93 billion) capital increase to help it pay down part of its huge pile of debt and shore up its stretched balance sheet. The state-controlled group, one of the world's most indebted companies, set the price for the offering at 14.50 euros per share and said the state would subscribe for shares worth about nine billion euros. The remaining six billion euros was fully guaranteed by a syndicate of 21 banks, the company said, including global coordinators ABN AMRO Rothschild, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole Indosuez Lazard, Credit Lyonnais, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs International, Merrill Lynch International and Morgan Stanley. France Telecom, which ran up some 70 billion euros in debt during a late-1990s expansion spree, averted a cash crunch earlier this year after vowing to slash costs, boost cash flow, sell non-core assets and raise equity in a bid to nearly halve its debts by 2005. France Telecom will issue one free subscription warrant for each share held at the close on March 24. For each 20 warrants held, shareholders will have the right to buy 19 new shares at 14.50 euros per share, the company said. Shareholders can exercise their right to buy new shares with the warrants from March 25 to April 4.
At 0820 GMT, France Telecom shares were down 4.3 percent at 19.33 euros, while yields on its bonds fell. France Telecom said underwriting banks reported demand for more than 30 billion euros in the operation. "The investors that are familiar with France Telecom, that knew about this operation, wanted it now," Frank Dangeard, head of the company's restructuring programme, told reporters on a conference call. "The decision to go ahead with this now was made independent of geo-political factors," he added, in response to a question on whether the U.S.-led war in Iraq had affected the timing of the operation. Last month, France Telecom shareholders backed plans for the cash call. The French government holds a 56 percent stake in the operator. Earlier this month, France Telecom posted a net loss of 20.7 billion euros for 2002, hit by huge asset writedowns linked to German affiliate MobilCom, telecoms carrier Equant and British cable group NTL. Investors had been calling for a quick decision on the capital increase, fearful that the U.S.-led war in Iraq could hit the value of stock prices and make the rights issue more difficult to pull off. Reuters contributed to this report.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
