Investors have bought 99.7% of the new shares Telekom Austria made available to the market, as the incumbent looks to improve its capital structure.
Telekom Austria sold the bulk of the 221.5 million shares issued to its main shareholders, Mexico’s…
Investors have bought 99.7% of the new shares Telekom Austria made available to the market, as the incumbent looks to improve its capital structure.
Telekom Austria sold the bulk of the 221.5 million shares issued to its main shareholders, Mexico’s America Movil and Austrian state holding company OeIAG, raising €997m (US$1.24bn) in the process.
America Movil, which owns 59.7% of the operator, bought 132.2 million new shares and OeIAG, which holds 28.42%, subscribed to 63 million new shares.
The purchases keep both shareholders’ stakes at the same level.
Some 25.5 million shares were sold on the open market, accounting for €116.5m (US$144.7m) of the final figure raised.
Telekom Austria said that 0.3% of the total shares offered were not subscribed to and that Deutsche Bank, joint global coordinator and joint bookrunner alongside Citigroup, would take them up and sell them to the market.
Erste Group, Raiffeisen and Unicredit also acted as joint bookrunners.
Telekom Austria will use the proceeds from the offering to re-establish its target capital structure and maintain a credit rating of at least BBB (stable) with Standard & Poor’s.
Telekom Austria launched the capital increase on 7 November after shareholders approved the action in August. America Movil and OeIAG both committed to supporting the hike back in April. Rumours of a capital increase have been circulating since summer 2013.
The operator plans to put a particular focus on rolling out fibre infrastructure between next year and 2018, and said a healthier capital structure would enable it to look at M&A opportunities.
Telekom Austria pointed to in-market consolidation as being its priority, followed by convergence deals and lastly looking into new areas.
