Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said today that it was able to raise $3.89 billion before expenses from the sale of 100 million shares of stock and a separate bond offering, reported Detroit Free Press.
The sale of the stock and bonds will give the automaker much needed capital that it can use to pay down debt and fund an aggressive expansion plan.
FCA said it raised $1.07 billion through the sale of common shares at $11 each. The shares were previously held by the company in its treasury shares. The company also said it raised $2.8 billion from the sale of bonds that will be converted into Fiat Chrysler shares of stock by Dec. 15, 2016.
The automaker announced the completion of the share and bond offerings on the same day that it announced name changes for its two main subsidiaries, Chrysler Group and Fiat Group.
Chrysler Group has been renamed FCA US LLC and Fiat Group has been renamed FCA Italy SpA.
"This has been a transformational year for FCA," Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FCA said in a statement. "The completion of these offerings marks another crucial step in establishing FCA as a global automaker with the capitalization to compete effectively with the world's largest automakers. We look forward to continuing to execute our 2014-2018 Business Plan."
In May, Marchionne unveiled an ambitious five-year plan that calls for the company to invest as much as $60 billion to hit aggressive goals.
Exor, an investment company that is controlled by the Agnelli family, purchased bonds valued at $886 million aggregate. That investment will preserve its approximately 30% ownership of FCA. Exor will own about 29.5% of FCA's shares after the completion of the offerings. John Elkann, chairman of FCA, also is chairman of Exor.
FCA's stock was trading at $11.52 per share on Tuesday, up 11 cents, or 1%. The company's stock also is up 29% from its close of $8.92 on Oct. 13 — its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Fiat became the 100% owner of Chrysler in January. In October, the company officially cleared all regulatory hurdles that allowed it to register the newly formed company in the Netherlands and establish a global headquarters in London. The company was renamed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Oct. 12.
The company said it paid underwriting commissions of $33 million to cover the cost of the share offering and also incurred underwriting expenses for the bond offering.
The firms that were involved in the stock and bond offerings included: J.P. Morgan Securities, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, UBS Securities, Citigroup Global Markets, BofA Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
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