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inancial services conglomerate PT MNC Kapital Indonesia received approval from its shareholders on Friday to launch a second rights issue to raise funds to pay debts and to provide additional capital for its subsidiary.

In the rights issue, MNC Kapital will sell 551 million new shares to existing shareholders at Rp 1,500 apiece. The proceeds from the rights issue are expected to reach Rp 827 billion (US$56 million).

MNC Kapital chief executive officer Darma Putra said that about Rp 240 billion of the proceeds from the rights issue would be used to buy the shares to be issued by its sister company Bank MNC. The capital injection into the bank was needed in order to strengthen its financing capacity, he said after the shareholders meeting. With greater capital, the bank was expected to be able to increase its contribution to MNC Kapital'€™s future profits, he added.

MNC Kapital plans also to use part of the proceeds from the rights issue to repay its debts worth about Rp 20 billion and strengthen the operations of its subsidiaries in a number of services including insurance, leasing, securities trading and multifinance.

'€œBy strengthening our subsidiaries, we plan to focus on developing our leasing and multifinancing services in order for them to be able to leverage the funds needed for their customers. Around Rp 100 billion to Rp 200 billion will be allocated to these specific services,'€ he said.

With the current economic climate and the weak state of the rupiah, Darma said that most of the conglomerate'€™s standby buyers were overseas investors, with some already expressing interest in the rights issue.

In addition to the shares, the conglomerate will also issue series I warrants. Each of the warrants would be given free with every share bought by MNC Kapital'€™s existing shareholders in the right issue, he said.

Bank MNC also won approval from its shareholders on Friday to sell 6.7 billion new shares during its fourth rights issues, or about 28.57 percent of its enlarged shares. The bank expects to raise about Rp 674 billion from the rights issue.

The funds from the rights issue would be used to strengthen Bank MNC'€™s capital structure in order to be able to increase its lending capacity and for the purchase of securities, Darma said.