Shares in Monte dei Paschi plunge 14% after capital raise

MILAN (Reuters) – Shares in Monte dei Paschi di Siena plunged 14% on Friday, triggering an automatic trading suspension, after the state-owned bank successfully completed a 2.5 billion euro ($2.4 billion) capital raise.

Monte dei Paschi said late on Thursday its new share issue had been 96.3% subscribed, with underwriters taking up the remaining 93 million euros.

Monte dei Paschi has been forced to price the new shares at an unusually small discount, because of its shrunken market value compared with the cash call’s size.

Analysts had forecast the shares would fall once they started trading to bring valuation multiples in line with those of peers.

($1 = 1.0233 euros)

(Reporting by Valentina Za; editing by Agnieszka Flak)