Alumina raises about A$737 Mln through Institutional Entitlement Offer

5/4/2009 12:15 AM ET

(RTTNews) - Sunday, Alumina Ltd. (AWC: News ) announced that it has raised about A$737.0 million through a 7 for 10 accelerated non-renounceable institutional entitlement offer of new shares, that was originally stated to raise about A$643.8 million, at an entitlement offer price of A$1.00 per new share. The company is also expected to raise another about A$284.9 million under a non-underwritten retail entitlement offer. The company is expected to use the proceeds of the offering to pay out debt, as it struggles under flagging demand.

On Friday, Alumina announced that it hoped to raise $1.02 billion through an entitlement offer to institutional and individual investors at a price of $1.00 per share, a deep discount to the closing price of Alumina shares of A$2.30, when it was last traded on Friday. It anticipated raising $643.8 million from institutions and a further $378.1 million from a retail entitlement offer.

The original amount to be raised under retail entitlement offer was about A$378.1 million. However, as the number of new shares expected to be issued under the institutional offer is 737.0 million now is an excess of 93.2 million shares, the offer for the retail entitlement offer has been reduced to about 284.9 million shares from about 378.1 million shares, originally stated to be offered.

The maximum total size of the combined entitlement offer is unchanged, being about A$1.02 billion, involving the issue of about 1.02 billion new shares. The minimum total size of the entitlement offer is now about $737.0 million.

The joint lead managers and underwriters for the offer were Macquarie Capital Advisers Ltd. and the Australia Branch of UBS AG, with the auditors being PricewaterhouseCoopers.

AWC closed Friday's regular trading session on the NYSE at $4.49 on a volume of 600 shares. Meanwhile, in Monday's regular trading session on the Australian Securities Exchange, AWC.AX is currently trading at A$1.30, down A$0.19 or 12.75% on a volume of 50.62 million shares.