Oct 6 (Reuters) - French bank Societe Generale unveiled a 4.8 billion euro ($7.02 billion) share capital hike to repay state support and pursue acquisitions on Tuesday, a week after local rival BNP Paribas tapped investors for 4.3 billion euros.
Many other banks have been seeking share sales to help rebuild their balance sheets and pay off the costly state aid received in the depths of the credit crisis. Here is a list of key share offers announced by banks in 2009:
* DBS Group:
-- Singapore's DBS Group, Southeast Asia's biggest bank, reported in January that its S$4 billion ($2.7 billion) rights issue to boost its capital had been oversubscribed.
* Emporiki Bank:
-- Greece-based Emporiki Bank, majority owned by France's Credit Agricole, announced in February it would seek shareholder approval for an 850 million euro ($1.1 billion) share capital increase to boost its liquidity.
* Nordea:
-- The Nordic region's biggest bank by value unveiled a 2.5 billion euro ($3.4 billion) guaranteed rights issue in April which was oversubscribed.
* HSBC:
-- Europe's biggest bank HSBC announced in April a record 12.9 billion pound ($18.9 billion) rights issue to bolster its capital ratio.
* Banco Espirito Santo:
-- One of Portugal's top three listed banks successfully carried out a 1.2 billion euro ($1.59 billion) rights issue in April to shore up its capital ratios.
* KeyCorp:
-- Cleveland-based bank KeyCorp announced in May its plan to sell $750 million of stock to raise capital. It also announced plans to swap common shares for up to $1.74 billion of preferred securities.
* PKO BP:
-- Poland's top bank by assets announced in June its plans to raise as much as $1.8 billion in a rights issue, Warsaw's largest share offer in five years, to boost lending and fund growth.
* Bank of America Corp:
-- Bank of America Corp, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, raised $5.9 billion by swapping 436 million common shares for preferred stock in May and in June proposed to issue $2.54 billion of common stock in exchange for existing preferred stock, to meet the $33.9 billion capital buffer required by the U.S. government.
* JPMorgan Chase & Co:
-- JPMorgan, the U.S.' second-largest bank, announced in June its plans to raise $5 billion of common equity, to enable it to repay $25 billion it took from the government's bank bailout plan, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
* Morgan Stanley:
-- Morgan Stanley announced in June its plan to raise $2.2 billion in common equity to repay its TARP loans.
-- Raised more-than-expected $3.5 billion in new equity in May.
* Post Bank:
-- Greece's state-controlled Post Bank, the country's seventh-largest lender, completed a 526 million euros ($735 million) rights issue to boost its capital in July.
* National Bank:
-- Greece's largest lender, National Bank, unveiled a capital-boosting rights issue of up to 1.25 billion euros ($1.74 billion) in July which was oversubscribed 2.25 times.
* China Merchants Bank Co:
-- China's sixth-largest lender announced in August its plan to raise 15 billion to 18 billion yuan ($2.20-2.63 billion) via a rights issue of Hong Kong-listed H shares and Shanghai-listed A shares to boost its capital adequacy ratio.
* Swedbank:
-- Swedbank surprised markets in August with news of a 15 billion Swedish crown ($2.1 bln) rights issue to boost its balance sheet hit by bad debts in the Baltics.
* DnB NOR:
-- Norway's biggest bank, unveiled a $2.4 billion rights issue in September, to replenish funds eroded by heavy exposure to the shipping sector hit by the slump in global trade.
* SNS Reaal Group NV:
-- The Dutch banking and insurance group sold 26.15 million new shares in September to help pay back a quarter of the 750 million euros ($1.11 billion) state aid it received a year ago.
* BNP Paribas:
-- France's biggest bank by market value, tapped investors for 4.3 billion euros ($6.3 billion) in a share issue in September, to repay French government support.
* UniCredit SpA
-- Italy's biggest bank proposed a 4 billion-euro share capital increase on Sept. 29 in preference to taking state aid and said that a shareholders' meeting will be called around mid-November to discuss the plan. The cash call will in part fund a 2 billion euro-capital increase at its Bank Austria unit.
* PKO
-- Poland's biggest bank by assets made a $1.8 billion cash call on Oct. 1, with plans to sell 250 million new shares at 20.5 zlotys each, a 38 percent discount to the closing market price of its existing shares prior to the announcement.
* Societe Generale
-- The French bank launched a 4.8 billion-euro ($7 billion) rights issue on Oct. 6 to repay state support and pursue acquisitions, offering two new shares for every nine shares held at 36 euros a share, a 26.9 percent discount to the bank's closing share price on Oct. 5. (Writing by Carl Bagh, Bangalore Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by David Cutler and Greg Mahlich)