Copenhagen, May 23 - Danish brewer Carlsberg A/S said its principal owner, the Carlsberg Foundation, had completed its disposal of rights in connection with the brewer's 30.5 billion crown ($6.3 billion) share issue.
By selling its rights to the stock rather than buying new shares, the charitable Carlsberg Foundation will cut its stake in the brewer to about 25 percent from over 50 percent, while still keeping a majority of Carlsberg's key voting shares.
The rights were sold to the company's bookrunners, a group of banks and brokerages, which placed a corresponding number of newly issued Carlsberg B shares through a bookbuilding with institutional investors in Denmark and internationally, Carlsberg said in a statement.
Danish media reported that bookrunners had sold 32 million shares of the total issue of more than 76 million shares at 490 crowns each. Carlsberg's shares were trading up 1.8 percent at 509 crowns on Friday.
Carlsberg announced a deeply discounted rights issue last week to repay a bridging loan it used to buy part of UK rival Scottish & Newcastle, in line with January's plans for the deal.
The rights issue was fully underwritten by BNP Paribas, Danske Bank, Lehman Brothers and Nordea Bank.