Brazil government ups Petrobras stake in record offering

Brazil's sovereign wealth fund, state-owned national development bank BNDES and other state enterprises also bought shares as part of the record-setting Petrobras sale that totaled $70 billion, he added.

"The deal was a huge success, surpassing expectations, in an adverse moment because there still a crisis in the world," Mantega told reporters before a ceremony to commemorate the Petrobras offer at the Sao Paulo stock exchange.

Petrobras sold 1.87 billion preferred shares at 26.30 reais each and 2.4 billion common shares at 29.65 reais each in Thursday's offering, which raised more than any other stock sale in history.

The Rio de Janeiro-based company will use the cash to help fund the world's largest oil exploration plan, which at $224 billion for the 2010-2014 period aims to turn Brazil into a major energy exporter.

The stock sale, which was larger than what the company originally planned but fell short of the maximum it had filed to sell, had total demand of $87 billion, a source with knowledge of the deal told Reuters on Thursday.

Sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East and Asia were also among the investors buying into the offering, the source added, underscoring the growing trend of increased investment flows between emerging economies.

The deal, comprising a $43 billion oil-for-shares swap with Brazil's government and the cash offer that investors settled, topped Japanese telecommunications firm NTT's <9432.T> $36.8 billion 1987 share sale and Agricultural Bank of China's <601288.SS> $22.1 billion initial public offering this year.

U.S.-traded shares of Petrobras were down 0,6 percent at $35.36 in trading before the market opened.

(Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Denise Luna, Writing by Elzio Barreto and Todd Benson; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

WhatsAppFacebookTwitterLinkedinBeloudBluesky