UniCredit capital increase declared a success

A key capital increase by the Italian bank UniCredit was declared a success on Friday, with investors snapping up 99.8 percent of the new shares on offer. UniCredit said it raised 7.48 billion euros ($10 billion) and would sell more shares worth 17.9 million euros at a later date. The bank said on January 4 that it wanted to raise 7.5 billion euros in fresh funds to meet higher capital requirements demanded by European and global regulators. The new shares were prices at 1.94 euros apiece, a big discount from their market value in early January. A sharp fall in the bank\'s share price in the subsequent five days sparked concern that European banks would not be able to attract capital as the 17-nation eurozone appeared to be headed into an recession. UniCredit executives won their bet however, and on Friday the shares closed at 3.65 euros apiece. The bank has not provided details on who bought the new shares, but there is speculation that institutional foreign investors have substantially increased their holdings. UniCredit is the second largest Italian bank, and it also has significant operations in Austria, Germany, Poland and Turkey.