MELBOURNE, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Santos Ltd STO.AX shares, unwanted by its retail investors, were sold on Thursday to institutions at a small premium to the offer price and its last closing price in a small show of faith in the battered stock.
The shares were leftover from a A$1.35 billion ($986 million) offer, in which its retail investors took up just over half of their entitlements to buy one new share at A$3.85 for every 1.7 shares they owned. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N13R1SY
The remaining shares were sold at A$4.10 a piece, compared with Santos' last trade at A$4.06.
"We are confident the Entitlement Offer, along with our other capital initiatives, will drive better returns for shareholders by substantially strengthening our financial position," Executive Chairman Peter Coates said in a statement.
Santos raised a total A$3.5 billion through the entitlement offer, the sale of new shares to Chinese private equity firm Hony Capital and the sale of some assets to pay down debt and shore itself up against weak oil prices after snubbing a A$7.1 billion takeover proposal last month.
Institutions last month took up 86 percent of their entitlements in the earlier leg of the offer, which was fully underwritten by Citi C.N , Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE and UBS UBSG.VX . The 14 percent of unwanted shares from that offer were sold off at A$4.60 a share.
Santos shares last traded at A$4.06, down 43 percent this year and well below the A$6.88 a share offered by its jilted suitor Scepter, a fund backed by Brunei and United Arab Emirates royals. ($1 = 1.3691 Australian dollars)