Fewer than 9% of HBOS’s shareholders took up their rights in the bank’s £4 billion rights issue, priced at a 45% discount to the bank’s share price at the time of launch, and only 18% of Barclays’ existing shareholders took up the shares offered to them in a clawback.
Investors rejected the deals as shares in the banks and indeed the sector suffered roller-coaster dips, plunging them below their offer prices, following bad news on the housing front and disappointing earnings announcements.
Although the rejection from existing shareholders didn’t bother Barclays too much because it had pre-placed the transaction with a...
