Standard Chartered raises £3.3 billion from rights issue

Standard Chartered has completed the rights issue it announced last month, raising £3.3 billion.

The rights issue was launched as part of a new strategy by the company’s new chief executive Bill Winters who has a tough job turning the emerging markets-focused bank around. The announcement was made last month along with plans to cut 15,000 jobs.

The company said that 96.8 percent of shareholders exercised their rights in the share sale.

The rights issue will help increase its core equity tier one ratio up from 11.5 percent to 13.1 per cent as measured by its June half-year books.

Mr Winters said:

“We are very pleased with the success of our Rights Issue and would like to thank our shareholders for their support. We will continue to focus on executing our strategy and restore our bank to sustainable, profitable growth, and deliver good returns for our shareholders.”

Last month Winters provided details of a strategic review which included plans to restructure $100 billion of StanChart’s $315 billion of underperforming risk-weighted assets over the next few years.

“The business environment in our markets remains challenging and our recent performance is disappointing,” Mr Winters said in November.