Telekom Austria wraps up cap hike raising 997 million euros

VIENNA (Reuters) - Telekom Austria has finalised its cash call, reaching 99.7 percent of its target of 1 billion euros (791.95 million pounds) with top shareholders Carlos Slim and Austria's state holding company OIAG making full use of their allotments, as expected.

"(About) 25.5 million new shares were subscribed for at a price of 4.57 euros per new share by free float investors. Including the commitments of the core shareholders America Movil... and OIAG the total take-up will be approximately 99.7 percent," the company said on Monday, referring to preliminary results of the subscription period ending on Monday.

The remaining 0.3 percent of shares will be taken-up by Deutsche Bank and sold in the market, Telekom Austria said.

Slim's America Movil holds a 59.7 percent of Telekom Austria and OIAG 28.4 percent. Both had indicated they would take up their allotments.

America Movil has said it wants to use Telekom Austria as a base for further expansion into central and eastern Europe, where Telekom Austria already has operations in six countries including Bulgaria and Croatia. The fresh capital aims to reduce debt and give the group firepower for acquisitions.

"Telekom Austria intends to use the net proceeds...to re-establish its target capital structure and maintain a credit rating of at least BBB (stable) by Standard & Poor's," it said.

"The capital increase will allow Telekom Austria to implement an accelerated roll-out of its fibre infrastructure during the years 2015-2018 in combination with latest available technologies to ensure CAPEX efficiency."

America Movil became the majority owner of Telekom Austria through a billion-dollar takeover offer in July that marked Slim's first successful venture into operating in Europe. Shares of Telekom Austria plunged after America Movil's extended offer for the Austrian company closed last month.

Deutsche Bank, Citi, Raiffeisen, Erste Group and Bank Austria are running the capital hike, sources close to the transaction have said. Trading on the Vienna bourse is due to begin on Nov 27.

(Reporting By Shadia Nasralla, editing by William Hardy)