Romania's Electroputere Seeks 215.8 Mln Lei (55.4 Mln Euro) in Capital Hike

The company plans to use the attracted capital to finance current operations and to repay some of its debts, Electroputere said in a statement without elaborating.

Shareholders on record as of December 24 will be able to buy 17.3784 new shares for each stock they own. The company is going to issue 2,157,838,996 new shares with an issue price equal to their face value of 0.10 lei each.

The 30-days subscription period will start from the date on which the decision for the capital hike gets published in the official gazette. Unsubscribed stock will be cancelled.

Electroputere's stock traded down 5.51% at 0.12 lei on the Bucharest Stock Exchange on December 8. It was suspended from trading on December 9 due to an managing board meeting and will resume trading on Friday .

As of June 30, Saudi Arabia's Al Arab Contracting Company owned a 62.82% stake in Electroputere. Other shareholders hold the balance, according to data of the Romania’s Central Depository.

The company said earlier it had cut its nine-month net loss to 27.678 million lei from 30.7 million lei a year earlier.

It has said it expects to pare its loss to 19.97 million lei in 2008 from 54.95 million in 2007. Turnover is seen at 277.64 million lei in the current year, up from 142.8 million last year.

Electroputere has four divisions that manufacture locomotives, electric engines, power transformers and other electrical equipment.

(1 euro = 3.8913 Romanian lei)