Dutch telecommunications giant Royal KPN NV has raised Eur2.92 billion or US$3.78 billion in share sale proceeds as investors bought 97.4% of the offered rights sold. Royal KPN NV is partly owned by America Movil SAB of Carlos Slim, the world's richest man.
The 74.9 million shares left unsubscribed would be sold at the bourse today, according to KPN in a statement. Originally, the Hague, Netherlands company set out to sell Eur3 billion from 2.84 billion shares worth Eur1.06 per share.
The purpose of the sale is to improve its balance sheet after its capital expenditure worth Eur1.35 billion on wireless spectrum in order to increase network speeds for clients that use mobile devices such as smartphones to surf the Web, download music and watch videos. KPN also announced that it was scrapping dividends for this year and the next.
KPN share values increased by 6.2% to Eur1.72 per share in the Amsterdam bourse yesterday, its biggest increase since November 21 but this was muted by the overall decline of 23% this year.
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